Sihoo Doro S300 Chair Review
The Sihoo Doro S300 promises a lot for an office chair. With springs all around for support, ultra-adjustable armrests and lumbar supports, and mesh upholstery, it attempts to be a shoe-in among the best ergonomic office chairs. While its features can work together well to find an ergonomic seating position, it all begins to fall apart as soon as you move out of that set position. And for an office chair that ranges in price from about $700 to $900, it really needs to be more comfortable in every position. After all, sitting stock still, no matter how ergonomic the position, isn’t a good thing.
Sihoo Doro S300 – Design and Features
Let’s start with the good. The Sihoo Doro S300 is a very attractive chair. The many steel elements lend it an air of luxury, and the sprung seat and lumbar supports look high-tech. The armrests are incredibly adjustable, showing most gaming chairs that “4D armrests” still aren’t hitting as many dimensions as they could. The armrests’ surfaces can swivel and slide independently from their supports, which can in turn swivel and angle upward, and the whole system is height adjustable, all without any buttons needing to be pressed to move them about. Getting the armrests to line up a desk surface is easy, and angling them toward a keyboard and mouse, just a keyboard for ergonomic typing, or inward toward a controller is also possible.
The seat, lumbar supports, and backrest all have a flexible mesh that’s supportive and breathable, which can certainly help during summer heat and sweaty gaming sessions. The seat can also slide forward and backward, helping users of different leg lengths find a comfortable fit with enough support for their upper legs without having the seat press into the backs of their knees. The chair sits on a height-adjustable piston that can raise the seat from 18.5 inches to 21.85 inches. The piston slots into a metal base, which is curiously the first I’ve ever encountered that required assembling the five legs around a separate hub. It comes together nicely, though it still looks a little cheaper than a single-piece base. The whole unit sits on fairly basic caster wheels with a metal center. The casters aren’t particularly stand-out hardware nor do they glide quite like the roller-blade style wheels I’ve seen used on the Mavix M9, for example.
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What sets the Sihoo Doro S300 apart from its lower-tier S100 model design-wise is that the seat rests on four springs. The lumbar supports also have spring backings on both models, but the Doro S300’s lumber can swing forward and shift angle to add extra pressure. It also features a more spacious seat, more adjustable armrests, and a different bill of materials – more steel, less plastic.
The seatback is kind of the star of the show. The upper portion of the seatback can have its height adjusted simply by pulling it up. It latches into different notches as it’s raised, though once it tops out, it can slide back down to its lowest height. This can be tedious if you’re trying to reach the tallest setting but frequently overshoot on the adjustment. The arms adjust in this way as well.
Below the upper portion sit two independent lumbar supports. With these attached to springs, they can conform to the shape of your lower back. And they have a small piston of their own that will push them further into your lumbar. The controls for this piston sit right next to the lumbar supports on the right side.
A small dial in the control cluster underneath the seat unlocks reclining. It has three settings – one locks the chair upright, a second that lets the chair recline a relaxed 110 degrees, and a third that lets the seat swing back 130 degrees (which feels much further back). There’s no fully locking the chair at any of the reclined angles in between, which is a shame to see, especially as the 130-degree recline can feel a bit much at times. A dial allows adjusting the tension of the reclining mechanism, but even at its most tense, it feels a bit weak. With it looser, I felt like the backrest wasn’t even there and I’d fly out of the back of the chair.
Sihoo Doro S300 – Performance
In practice, the Sihoo Doro S300 is reasonably comfortable in its fully upright position for short bursts. I’m 6’3”, which is right at the upper limit of what the chair is designed for, and the seat is a little too narrow and too short, making the sides of my legs hit the plastic rim of the seat instead of resting entirely on the mesh. The back rest is also nowhere near tall enough to support my head if I feel like leaning back unless I want to stare at the ceiling. Shorter, smaller users will benefit more.
While the backrest can slide up quite a ways, the lumbar support remains in place, so it doesn’t effectively adjust to the backs of taller users. Between that and the inward curvature of the seatback, I feel the Sihoo Doro S300 fighting against me rather than helping me have an upright, open-chested posture.
There’s just too many ways that it doesn’t quite meet expectations in anything other than an upright posture.
There’s a lot going on with the Doro S300 adjustments – some of it clever and some of it not so well conceived. For instance, the armrests are incredibly adjustable and can certainly lend themselves to an ergonomic setup, but their angle is linked to the backrest angle. So if you recline the backrest to what the user manual indicates is the “normal office sitting posture,” you end up with the armrests angled upward. This means you can’t keep the armrest and desk surface aligned while reclined, and as a result, you either sit with your arms only slightly supported (which introduces extra pressure where they sit on the armrest) or have your arms tilted up, neither of which makes for ideal ergonomics when using a mouse and keyboard.
The armrests themselves have curving tops, which can work to support more of your arm if they’re positioned correctly, but it’s just as easy to end up with this support working against you. I often find I end up with my elbow jabbed by the back end of the armrests or end up with just the front of the cushion supporting my forearm, where its smaller contact patch puts a lot of pressure on the muscle. As good as these armrests can be in a static position that’s been carefully arranged, they can struggle to keep up with shifting postures and positions, and their extra ergonomics become hindrances if you’re not willing to dial them in just right after every move you make. Perhaps that explains why the Steelcase Gesture, for example, opted for flatter armrests.
While it’s great that the Sihoo Doro S300 can create an ergonomic arrangement with a desk, there’s just too many ways that it doesn’t quite meet expectations in anything other than an upright posture. The Mavix M9 has a lot of similarity with (optional) armrests that have tons of flexibility and an adaptive lumbar, and by being a bit simpler, it actually manages to pull it off better, even if it tends to be a bit more expensive. The Razer Fujin Pro also pulls off a similar design and gets a much stronger recommendation from us.
Purchasing guide
The Sihoo Doro S300 comes in black or white colors. It’s available at an MSRP of $899 for the black model or $909 for the white model from Sihoo directly, though available discounts bring it to $699 and $709, respectively. Street pricing sees it a little more affordable with Amazon offering it at $799 with a $120 coupon available to bring it to $679. Newegg also lists the chair at $799 but without any discounts, and Bed Bath & Beyond has it at $650 after 19% savings from a $799 list price.
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