Vertagear Gaming Series Triigger Line 350 and 275 Reviews

Vertagear Gaming Series Triigger Line 350 and 275 Reviews

Manufacturer: Vertagear
UK price (as reviewed): 275: £469.99 (inc VAT); 350: £629.99 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): 275: $599.99 (ex tax); 350: $699.99 (ex tax)

No, that's not a typo; there really are two 'i's in the name 'Triigger' – outrageous, isn't it?! Oh, you meant the price? Yes, that too is correct.

Back when we reviewed seven gaming chairs in our roundup last year, the £320 Noblechairs Epic seemed excessively expensive compared to the rest of the flock. Still, the real leather version of that chair comes in at under £500, while high-end office chairs like those from Herman Miller, for example, can set you back close to £900, so Vertagear isn't treading untrodden ground here. There's also a compelling argument made in situations like this that it's worth investing in the things you use every day, with shoes and a mattress often cited as examples. Like both of these things, a chair you sit in for eight hours or more every day can (read: will) have a long-term impact on your body (most notably your spine) for better or worse, so it's not an argument to be taken lightly. Nevertheless, these will need to be some seriously impressive chairs given the asking price, so how do they fare?


In our original roundup, we found that many of the chairs were largely the same. Sure, there were some differences in materials and aesthetics, but from the construction process and even the packaging, it was obvious that some of them had been spewed out from the same factory. Digging into the Triigger boxes, however, reveals a chair that's very different to what we've seen before. This applies to both the 275 and the 350 models. The two are largely similar, so we'll be tackling them together in this joint review, highlighting differences as we go. For your visual reference, the all-black chair is the 350, and the black and white one is the 275.

Even just aesthetically, the Triigger chairs seem much more akin to premium office chairs than typical “gaming” chairs. Vertagear does have some different colour options, but all are black with small highlights, and our samples are as neutral as they come and would be sure to blend in neatly with virtually any office space. This is no bad thing; the price means that the target audience is overwhelmingly adults, so we're happy to see a restrained approach to the design. There's quite a contrast between these chairs and the Nitro Concepts C80 Pure, for an example of what we mean.


Then there's the assembly process. This has ranged from a minor inconvenience to a real pain the butt in the past, but the chair part of the Triigger chairs (i.e. the mechanical lower part, the seat base, the back support, and the arm rests) actually comes fully assembled, which means no awkward screwing together of parts and a 100 percent reduction in swear words emitted. All you need to do is push the wheels into the wheel base, slot the stand into place, and finally lower the chair onto it – you're done. Pushing the wheels in is a tad fussy on occasion, but we spent longer unpacking everything than we did assembling it, and we haven't been able to say that about a chair before. That alone does not a £630 chair make, but it's definitely a good start, and the process is identical for both.


The key and unique selling point is the pair of adjustment triggers, with one located at the end of each arm rest and connected by cables to the lower mechanical area. These triggers also give the chairs their silly name and are the reason they come mostly assembled – the complexity of the mechanisms demands it. As Vertagear proudly points out, the dual-spring hub module beneath the seat contains over 80 individual components. The end result is that you're able to adjust the height and tilt of the chair with these two triggers.


If you want to be amused today, we suggest reading Vertgear's product description for these chairs. Talk of being inspired by the paddle shifts used in Formula One racing cars or the cables in suspension bridges is one thing, but when Vertagear claims that competitive gaming is 'no less intense' than Formula One racing and that the speed with which you can adjust the chairs is beneficial to gamers, we can't help but laugh. Our personal favourite bit is where it says 'users can adjust seat height and tilt angle within 0.32 seconds, which is 8 times faster than normal chairs'. It's amusing to think this has been tested; we wonder if there's video footage. Either way, we can't remember the last time we won a multiplayer bout by adjusting our chair's height quicker than our opponent. Vertagear has a traditional gaming audience, but its attempts to draw positive associations between its adjustment triggers and competitive gaming are utterly ludicrous. Once you've found a comfortable and ergonomically suitable position, adjusting your chair shouldn't be something you need to do often, let alone in less than one second.


Still, we're here to criticise the chairs themselves not the marketing behind them. So let's crack on with that.