Branch Ergonomic Chair review: A budget chair that's a treat for your wallet (and your butt)

Branch has done something clever. The New York-based company has focussed its creative minds when it comes to office chairs, and offer only three ergonomic options. Three ergonomic, beautifully designed chairs at three distinct price points. And each one is excellent.

There's the most expensive and beautifully designed, the Verve. Then there's the best mid-range chair I've ever used, the Ergonomic Chair Pro. Both of these are currently sitting in my list of the best office chairs for lower back pain.

Then there's the Branch Ergonomic Chair. It's their lowest-priced chair – but is it as good as its bigger brothers? And at $359/$389 retail, will it ease into my guide to the best budget chairs? Let's get into it.

Design & aesthetics

The Ergonomic Chair looks a lot like Branch's slightly more expensive – and more adjustable – Ergonomic Chair Pro. This one comes in five colours (currently with two added limited editions). I chose the Pebble colour (grey), and it looks sleek and inviting. Combined with the soft contours of the seat and armrests and back, it's a pretty thing indeed. And those good looks translate into great design. Nearly (more on that below).

With its mesh back and seat, and white (or black) frame that edges the back, there's definitely a bit of a retro look to the Ergo Chair. Add a horizontal striping through the back mesh, and the Ergo Chair is giving me GameBoy-grey vibes – and I love it.

There's nothing old fashioned about the design though. Although it doesn't have all the clever use of colour that the other two Branch chairs do (the base legs and arms sharing the same colour as the seat and back), it's still a chic chair.

The only problem I have with the design of this chair, is how wide the arm rests are set out. Although you can move the whole arms further out and closer in (just like with the Ergo Chair Pro), and I really like that feature, I found that when I set the arms as close in to me as possible, I still couldn't comfortably rest both elbows on them, and ended up resting one and hovering the other.

Now, I've looked online to see if any other users experienced this, and so far, it appears to just be me. So there's a chance that I've either put it together wrong, or have somehow shrivelled up. Comparing both Ergo Chairs, I can see that the seat is deeper than the standard Chair, but there's no mention of the Pro being narrower than this chair... However, this one has 3-way adjustable arm rests, while the Pro has 8-way adjustable rests, so perhaps I was able to move the Pro arms closer to me, where I can't with the Chair. Either way, it was the one design flaw that I found, and I was able to just move my arms out a bit, but that put me in a sub-optimal position.

Ergonomics

For a chair that retails at $349 for the black model, and $389 for all the other fancier colours (including my Pebble version), the Ergonomic Chair from Branch is plenty, well, ergonomic. To give its features and price context, it's a good idea to compare it to the Pro.

The Pro has 14 adjustments on offer, while the Chair has 8. The Pro's arms move in 5 ways, and the Chair's only 3. What does that mean in the sitting? didn't really miss all the added adjustments of the Pro when sitting in the Ergo Chair. I could move the seat depth forward and back, I loved the back recline that locked in 4 different angles, and the arm movements were serviceable.

Actually, that's the weak point of this chair. As pointed out above, the arm rests are set a little too wide for my liking, and so I couldn't comfortably rest both elbows on the rests at the same time. That may be different for you, but it's worth mentioning.

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I used the Ergonomic Chair for around two months, and I did come back to the wideness of the arm rests. Everything else worked exactly I had hoped. The lumbar support was solid, and though it didn't have the padded lumbar that its Pro bro does, I can't say I missed that (I had reviewed the Pro previously to this, so it was all still fresh in my mind).

I really liked the double-layered mesh back, and found myself giving it a satisfying squish without thinking about it, as I took a break from work. And though headrests aren't for everyone, I really enjoyed this one, and found it was perfectly positioned for my (it can be adjusted up and down).

Delivery & assembly

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Branch is really good at offering a stress-free assembly experience. With only 8 parts to slot and screw together, it's definitely one of the easier of the chairs I've reviewed, as opposed to the multi-million piece puzzles that are Sihoo chairs.

As with all my chair reviews, I constructed the chair by myself, with only the tools the company supplied, and moved it from ground level to my first floor office room. Actually, I did that in two parts – base and top – as at 15.9 kg, it's not nothing to carry up a flight of stairs by yourself (of course, Branch suggest you use two people to move it, but I find that unrealistic for most people who just want to get cracking with their new chair, so I always put my chairs together by myself. Also no one ever wants to help me... I'm fine... I said I'm FINE!!).

Price & verdict

I wrote the majority of this review thinking that the Ergonomic Chair was $349, and was pretty happy about that. Then I selected off the standard black model, and clicked on the pebble, sand and graphite... and the price went up to $389.

Now, I like the colours. It's something that Branch do really well. But is a bit of colour worth $40? I'm not completely sure. However, at the higher $389, I still think this is a great value chair. So, crisis averted... however, I would like to see just one price for all colour options.

So, should you buy it? I've given the Ergonomic Chair 4 stars out of 5, as it's a very good chair that, if you don't have the issue of wide-set arm rests that I did, is a great option. But I can only review the model that I receive, and that with that model, I couldn't always naturally rest my elbows on the arm rests, and so I took a star away for that. If you don't have that problem, it's a 4.5/5 chair (not a 5, as the Sihoo M18 still reigns supreme when it comes to offering the best ergonomics for under $150).