Noblechairs HERO Black Edition Review
Up Close
The HERO Black Edition arrived in a suitably black box and requires barely any assembly. You even get one of each fixing spare in case you have a floor that is particularly keen to bounce washers into the great beyond. Four screws attach the base to the chair, four more to attach the back to the base, gas cylinder and base slide on and the 60mm casters go in easily and have zero wobble. Many home-assembly things suggest they can be built by a pensioner with nothing more than an allen key, but the HERO is true to that ideal.
If you’ve ever brought something that required a lot of assembly and found yourself staring at a fuzzy, a5 photocopied sheet then the instructions for the noblechairs HERO Black Edition will come as a shock. Large format, incredibly clear printing, supremely easy to follow. In fact, considering how easy the chair is to put together, it’s almost too good.
It’s so nice to have a chair that doesn’t pretend you’re going to be bolting yourself in with a five point harness in your office, but instead focuses upon being a chair. You get both a headrest and a lumbar cushion, but the HERO has a trick up its lumbar sleeve we’ll get to in a moment. The finish is plain and understated, with the hybrid vegan leather having an attractive matte finish.
The underside contains the three main controls. On the left of this picture – right hand side as you sit – is the height adjustment that is smooth in action. The right hand lever toggles the reclining function of the entire chair, should you like to swing back and forth without committing to a particular reclined position. Lastly the big knob in the middle adjusts the tension on that reclining function, letting you lean back without feeling like you’re about to fall off the edge of the world.
The new 4D arms are a big improvement upon the original design. The button to adjust them moving forwards and backwards is recessed instead of standing proud and catching on your belt loops. The height adjustment is more solid, with an easier to operate lever, and the arms themselves are more solid without sacrificing comfort.
The dial on the back of the chair – left edge of this photo – adjusts the lumbar support, and there is an awful lot of adjustment here. Perfect if you require some extra support to stop the small of your back crying enough after 8 hours in the hotseat.
Lastly the lever next to the seat adjusts the position of the backrest. Naturally you want to be as upright as possible, but if you want to pretend you’re Joey and Chandler you can recline right back.
When you type as many hours as we do a day then getting perfect posture is key to not having rounded, crippled shoulders at the end of the week, and the noblechairs HERO has plenty of height in the arms as you can see. Keep your arms horizontal and save your wrists from a lifetime of aches.
The original noblechairs chair we reviewed was more akin to a racing seat – their EPIC model comes closest – and you can see from these two pictures that the HERO has a more relaxed seating position. Perfect if you don’t like feeling constricted, or if you merely enjoy a little extra wiggle room for your thighs and hips. You can also see the fine grain of our chosen faux leather finish as well as the quality of the stitching. This truly is a well made chair, with only the slightly askew logo on the back rest letting the side down.
