Guide

Testing the Recaro Exo Platinum: my new favourite, but…

16.8.2022

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

Recaro is known for bucket seats in tuned cars. I therefore have high hopes for the manufacturer’s most expensive gaming chair. I sat in it nearly every day for three months straight, trying to find out whether its exorbitant price is justified for you.

With the Exo Platinum from Recaro, I’m bringing back memories. After all, this German manufacturer of bucket seats accompanied me during many a speedy car journey years ago. Not that I ever owned one myself. But I was a web content manager for General Motors for a few years, getting to enjoy free test-drives every so often.

The Corvette and me in 2014 – V8 under the hood and Recaro under my butt.

But it’s not just the V8 engine sound and that acceleration tingle in my stomach that have stayed with me from the Corvette. As if it were only yesterday, I can still feel the Recaro seat beneath me. It’s a staple in sporty cars. And I’d argue that without these bucket seats, there’d be no gaming chair today. Because that’s exactly what you’re bringing home when you buy one – slightly modified, of course.

Recaro provided me with an Exo Platinum Black & White as a test product.

Gaming chairs

CHF1189.–

RECARO Exo Platinum 2.0

If you want to know right away how the chair performs in our custom test, scroll down to «Ergonomics: comfortable, pleasant and without back pain.» It also comes in other colours, we have it in black as well.

Gaming chairs

CHF1189.–

RECARO Exo Platinum 2.0

Specs:

Cover material:	Fabric (polyester)
Materials:	Polyester, upholstery foam, metal and plastic
Dimensions (height, weight):	137-147 cm, ‎26,6 kg
Seating surface (width, depth):	40,5¹ × 45 cm
Backrest height:	94 cm
Rocking function:	Stepless, lockable towards the front or entirely
Min. seat height:	45 cm
Max. seat height:	55 cm
Armrest support (width, depth):	9,5 x 23,5 cm
Armrest adjustability:	5D
Weight limit:	150 kg
Special features:	Fixed lumbar support in backrest, neck support optional

¹ The seat width, not including the side bolsters, is 40.5 centimetres at the very front and decreases evenly towards the rear. Right by the backrest, the seat is 30.5 centimetres wide.

I haven’t found a manufacturer’s recommended body size for the chair. Therefore, I’ll make an estimate myself. The chair should fit you best if you’re 170 to 185 centimetres tall. In addition, your lower body shouldn’t be too big either, as the seat is 40.5 centimetres wide at the front, but narrows towards the back.

If this model is too expensive for you, Recaro offers cheaper models, which should provide the same seating experience in terms of basic functionality – a breathable fabric cover and similarly shaped upholstery foam. The Recaro Exo and the Recaro Exo FX. There’s also an optional Recaro headrest you can buy. You can find all products here.

Material check: no office racing chair

The Exo Platinum comes in a huge, bulky package. This is due to the fact that it arrives basically already assembled. What remains to be done apart from unpacking? Attaching casters to the aluminium base cross, inserting the gas spring, screwing the armrests at your desired distance from the seat and placing the seat on the cross.

I can’t recommend running an office chair race with the Recaro, as it has hard floor casters. This suits me because I use it on laminate. Now my casters don’t fling me into the adjacent bedroom at the slightest movement.

A large office can fit a correspondingly large chair. Or two. Whereas small chairs do make an office look bigger in itself. Recaro or Giroflex? Herman Miller?

Even though there is some plastic in the product, it looks fancy and sturdy. The matt white colour scheme of the casing reminds me of Stormtrooper armour. Even without this image, the chair looks powerful in its size, but simultaneously discreet thanks to its colour scheme. Moreover, Recaro didn’t leave it at covering the chair with fabric at the front. Part of the back is also lined with it, making it appear a bit slimmer.

Looking closer at the back, I also find a «secret compartment» that can hold a few litres. However, you should be careful when opening it: it was so hard to open the first time that I almost broke my fingernails.

I wonder what I could put in there? — A «secret compartment»…

Gaming chairs don’t have any ergonomic benefits due to their design – there are plenty of «regular» office chairs that will ensure you can work or play comfortably without pain. For example, I can recommend products from Giroflex. And yet, you feel more shielded from your surroundings with a bucket seat thanks to the large backrest. When it comes to ergonomics – as with any chair – the primary factors are butt and back comfort, how good the air circulation is on warm days, and especially how well it supports your lordosis. Lordosis is the natural forward curvature of the spine.

Recaro wants its chairs to combine the best elements of car seats with gaming. This includes integrated, fixed lumbar support. A good thing, if it works correctly, as it eliminates the need for pillows, which always slip around anyway. The padding and fabrics used are designed to provide good breathability and both support and relieve my body.

The lumbar support is hard to photograph, but it’s there.

The armrests are mostly made of metal and are adjustable in five dimensions. Unlike most other gaming chairs, you don’t pull a lever to adjust the backrest angle, but turn a hand wheel. There’s one on each side. Although this takes a little longer, it’s more precise.

If you want to change your angle to the floor, you can use the integrated rocker function, which turns the chair into a rocking gaming chair. I can dually adjust the intensity continuously – with a hand wheel on the right under the seat, which is integrated in the lever for the chair height. A clever solution, as I’m used to doing this on my knees, fumblingaway under the seat shell with previous test chairs. In addition, I can lock the chair twice. Once, so that it only swings backwards, and once completely. In other words, the corresponding control lever on the left under the seat has three levels.

Ergonomics: comfortable, pleasant and without back pain.

How hard a chair is depends equally on the upholstery foam and on the covering material. At the same time, fabric-covered chairs tend to be a little softer. The Recaro chair is no exception. It’s a little less hard than my previous favourite gaming chair – the Razer Iskur – and also better adjusted to my butt, since the cushion foam yields more.

Recaro really understands what they’re doing. Moving forward, this upholstery is the new state of the art in gaming chairs. And what’s true for my butt is also true for my back. The integrated fixed lumbar support is embedded in the backrest and perfectly positioned for my 181-centimetre stature. In addition, the upholstery foam ensures that my lordosis is well supported with a pleasant firmness.

During my three months, I found only one thing that doesn’t work with the Recaro apart from adjusting lumbar support: a few of its rival chairs can tilt their backrest up to 180 degrees. This also makes them useful for a nap.

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This isn’t possible with Recaro, the chair stops at an estimated 100 degrees. But aside from that, it doesn’t only serve me well in an upright position when I’m concentrating on writing this, but also in the evening when I’m gaming. For the last three months, it’s made my back and me happy. And since the temperatures were often above 25 degrees Celsius the past few weeks, I can also say with a clear conscience that the fabric cover is breathable as described by the manufacturer. My back and buttocks were almost never sweaty.

As far as the functions are concerned, I’m very satisfied with the operation and its features. I must say I’m impressed with the chair – not least because Recaro does something else better than many of its competitors: the armrests hardly wobble and provide good support.

Verdict: an extremely solid, yet expensive, gaming chair

Recaro is something of a top dog for bucket seats in cars. Whether the manufacturer can become the same for gaming chairs in the future is questionable. I don’t really have any complaints about the Exo Platinum I tested – its fixed lumbar support is fortunately at the correct height for my size. Quite the opposite, in fact. The chair can be adjusted in a variety of ways to suit me, is well made, and has the best gaming chair padding I’ve ever encountered. And the most stable armrests. Everything about it is grand – including the price. It’ll run you more than double my previous favourite, the Razer Iskur.

Therefore, I can only recommend the chair with a massive asterisk. Yes, it is comfortable and looks good. Nevertheless, it’s just too expensive. Here, in addition to the chair, you also pay for the name.

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Martin Jud

Senior Editor

martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.ch

I find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.

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