REASONS TO BUY
Good value
Breathable back
REASONS TO AVOID
Armrests seems flimsy
Not the most comfortable for extended use
Steelcase Series 1 Review
This chair offers a solid value, is easy to assemble, and boasts a breathable back
By Hayley Thomas ⋅ Review Editor ⋅ June 25, 2021
Contributions From: Austin Palmer & David Wise
RELATED: The Best Office Chairs of 2025
Our Verdict
The Steelcase Series 1 is a decent all-around chair that is priced in the mid range. There are more comfortable chairs for those that plan to use it regularly, but it is a good option for a home office that gets mild to moderate use, or for anyone who isn't planted to their chair for 40+ hours a week. It appears to be solidly constructed and is decently comfortable; however, it does not best the top-rated office chairs, which come at a much higher price.
Our Analysis and Test Results
The Series 1 isn't the most comfortable chair we have tested but it is a good value.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Comfort
Most of our judges felt that the seat of the Series 1 chair is adequately comfortable. All of the judges found this chair to have acceptable amounts of padding, but a few found the seat to be angled forward just a little too aggressively, feeling like the chair was going to dump them out. Opinions of the backrest were split, with no judge being overly fond of the backrest and several severely disliking it. This chair doesn't give you many reclining options, and compared to other models, the lumbar support is definitely on the weaker side.
The adjustable lumbar support on this chair can be a bit finicky to set.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
The armrests on this chair also failed to receive rave reviews from our testers. They tend to shift around when you put pressure on them and don't offer a ton of padding. The majority of our judges spent significant amounts of time constantly readjusting them while sitting in the Series 1 in an often fruitless quest for a comfortable position. Overall, only about half of our judges would be content sitting in the Series 1 for eight hours or more, with the remaining calling it quits with this chair after four or five hours.
We did like that the Series 1 has fully adjustable armrests -- a rarity for mid-range (priced) chairs.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Adjustability
It also features an adjustable lumbar support brace, but you can only adjust the height; the amount of support it offers and the curvature cannot be adjusted, so you are out of luck if the stock setting doesn't match your spine. You can't adjust the reclining resistance and tilt limiter separately, as they are combined into a single knob, offering only three combinations to choose from. Additionally, two of these settings had a barely noticeable difference, so your reclining options are fairly limited with this chair.
Your reclining options are a bit limited with the Series 1.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
The armrests offer considerable adjustability. They can be moved in and out, forward and back, up and down, and can swivel. However, they do have a reduced range of motion compared to some of the other chairs and are attached to the backrest, so the armrests do not recline as you do. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a matter of personal preference; however, the majority of our judges would prefer the armrests to remain stationary as they recline. The Series 1 also has an adjustable seat pan depth and overall is fairly easy to adjust to reach an ergonomic position for most people at most desks as well as the best standing desk converters in the down position.
This chair seemed decently durable and is backed by an exceptionally long warranty from Steelcase.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Durability
The Series 1 did exceptionally well, earning one of the better scores of the group and placing right at the top of the pack.
We found mostly positive remarks during our in-depth review of customer experiences with this chair, with only a few complaints about structural issues. One said the lumbar support broke after only a few months, and another thought the gas cylinder (for raising or lowering the chair) started to leak after a while. These appear to be isolated incidents, and we find that Series 1 is well-constructed. It doesn't seem as solid as some of Steelcase's premium chairs, but we didn't identify any particularly worrisome spots. The lumbar support did give us some pause — especially after reading the review where it broke --, but it seems solid after months and months of testing.
This chair arrived fully assembled, so we were able to go from unpacking to sitting in a matter of minutes.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Ease of Assembly
The Series 1 arrived completely assembled and didn't require any effort on our part to get it ready to go aside from unpacking it, which only took five to 10 minutes.
Value
The Series 1 is a great value. It's not the cheapest or highest scoring in our fleet, but it's fairly comfortable and ergonomic to sit in and has plenty of adjustable features for your personal preferences. It's a good middle ground between not spending a ton of money on a chair and not having a cheap chair that is so uncomfortable that you can't stand to sit in it.
Conclusion
The Steelcase Series 1 has its fair share of flaws, and we wouldn't really recommend it as our first choice if you sit down for the entire day with it. We did notice that the armrests are a little on the wider side, so more petite users might find that problematic. While we are the first to admit that the Series 1 isn't the most comfortable chair we have tested to date, it is far from the worst. Most of our testers were more than happy to use it for five to six hours a day, and it only started to elicit complaints from users who were sitting in it for eight to ten hours a day, for four to five days a week.
—Hayley Thomas, Austin Palmer, and David Wise
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