A premium seat for Razer fans

The Razer Enki X is a gaming chair with a premium look and feel that doesn't cost nearly as much as the category's more expensive options. It's an excellent seat, as long as you don't mind the inability to lean back or lock the armrests into position.

Razer entered the gaming chair market with the Iskur, but that pricey, $499 chair was specifically made for people who need strong lumbar support. Enki is Razer’s less expensive, more broadly accessible gaming chair line, and the Enki X is the value-priced model. At $299.99, the Enki X is reasonably priced, and undercuts the Iskur and the SecretLab Titan EVO, an Editors' Choice pick, by more than $100. The Enki X is well-made and comfortable, more so than competing products in this price range, but it lacks features commonly found in more expensive chairs, such as a tilting mechanism and four-directional armrests (which the more expensive non-X Enki has). Even without those features, the Enki X stands out as an excellent value.

Opening the Enki X box reveals a pair of black cloth gloves with green trim. It’s a cute touch, ostensibly for protecting your hands while you assemble the chair. The plain, woven fabric makes it a bit trickier to get a good grip on the parts, though.

Whether you put the gloves on or not, putting the chair together is the same straightforward process as nearly all gaming chairs. You bolt the chair's top to the seat's hinges, which tends to be the most frustrating step in the process. That's because you must align both sides of the chair's back with the small, metal arms. I was pleasantly surprised to see that, like the Secretlab Titan EVO, the Enki X has flat plates to assist with aligning the screw holes. This is a helpful move that I’ve seen too many gaming chairs in the past omit; without the plates, you must press the metal arms to the soft upholstery on the chair's back, then fish around to find the screw holes. The Enki X's platers are plastic rather than metal like the Titan's platers, but they work just as well.

With the two main chair parts connected, you then attach plastic covers over the joints on the side, then flip over the entire assembly. Next, you screw the metal bracket to the seat's bottom; then the chair is ready to be popped onto the base. Push the casters and gas cylinder into the metal base, and fit the circular hole in the bracket over the top of the cylinder. The chair is done!

Assembled, the Enki X looks sleek and attractive. The curves along the back are a bit less stark and more organic than most gaming chairs, and the seat and back are spruced up a bit with a diamond quilting pattern instead of flat faux leather. Green stitching on the edges and a green Razer logo on the headrest establish branding and gamer-ness without looking absurd.

The leatherette itself is quite nice, featuring two textures over the chair. The diamond-quilted faux leather on the direct back and seat, where the chair naturally meets your body, is soft and smooth with a matte finish, save for a stiffer strip that runs along the spine. The inner sides of the chair, where your shoulders and thighs will touch if you move around while sitting, are still smooth but slightly more textured and glossy. The material is visually appealing and sturdy.

The Enki X's padding also uses dual material. The seat's foam is slightly softer than the back's foam, so you feel a bit more cushion under you and firmer support behind you. Those touches, along with gently molded lumbar support, give the chair an overall comfortable feel.

The components outside of the main chair parts are where Razer skimped a bit compared with the standard Enki. To start, only the armrests’ height and horizontal angle are adjustable; you can’t slide them left, right, forward, or backward like you can on the Enki or SecretLab Titan Evo chairs. Also, the Enki X's armrests aren’t fully metal-reinforced like the Enki's armrests, and the simple matte black pipes that attach to the chair look less stylish.

The chair's bottom is the biggest compromise, though. The chair attaches to the gas cylinder on the base via a simple metal plate instead of a heavier, hinge mechanism. This means you can’t tilt the chair backward like you can on the Enki and Titan Evo. You can still recline the chair up to 152 degrees by pulling the lever on the seat's right side, but you can’t lean back with the full chair. It’s disappointing after using a chair that can tilt for so long, but it helps enable the Enki X’s much lower price.

The Enki also comes with a memory foam head pillow, while the Enki X doesn’t. That’s a pretty minor omission.

The Razer Enki X is designed for people between 5’5” and 6’8” in height who weigh less than 300 pounds. I fit within that range, and the chair feels comfortable. The back is supportive, and molds well to my body. The seat has enough give to feel pleasantly soft while still being firm, and the faux leather, particularly the smooth diamond-quilted material, looks and feels premium despite the chair’s low price.

The lack of a tilt mechanism is disappointing, but it’s an understandable compromise to lower the chair's cost. The armrests are also slightly annoying, because they can’t be locked into position. In fact, I regularly found myself nudging either armrest inward or outward with a push of my elbows.

These complaints are minor compared with the Razer Enki X's value, and the high-quality components used in its seat and back. It feels nicer than any GTRacing chair we’ve tested, like the Ace M1, which is the only model we’ve seen recently under $300 that we would consider recommending. The Razer Enki X is simply a comfortable, well-made chair that subverts its $300 price tag by skimping on the bottom plate and armrests. If your budget is solidly in that range, this is one of the best picks available.

The non-X Razer Enki offers the full gaming chair experience, with a tilting mechanism and 4D armrests, but it also costs $100 more (and we’ve yet to test it). Spending that much money also puts the SecretLab Titan Evo within reach, and that chair stands as our current favorite due to its build quality and features. If you’re looking for a lighter chair, and your budget is more in the Enki X zone, the $319 Respawn Specter, an Editors' Choice pick, is an appealing option with its mesh-backed build, even if the back doesn’t recline (the entire chair tilts, though).

The Razer Enki X is a gaming chair with a premium look and feel that doesn't cost nearly as much as the category's more expensive options. It's an excellent seat, as long as you don't mind the inability to lean back or lock the armrests into position.

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I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years).

Home theater technology (TVs, media streamers, and soundbars)

Smart speakers and smart displays

I test TVs with a Klein K-80 colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, a HDFury Diva 4K HDMI matrix, and Portrait Displays’ Calman software. That’s a lot of complicated equipment specifically for screens, but that doesn’t cover what I run on a daily basis.

I use an Asus ROG Zephyr 14 gaming laptop as my primary system for both work and PC gaming (and both, when I review gaming headsets and controllers), along with an aging Samsung Notebook 7 as my portable writing station. I keep the Asus laptop in my home office, with a Das Keyboard 4S and an LG ultrawide monitor attached to it. The Samsung laptop stays in my bag, along with a Keychron K8 mechanical keyboard, because I’m the sort of person who will sit down in a coffee shop and bust out not only a laptop, but a separate keyboard. Mechanical just feels better.

For my own home theater, I have a modest but bright and accurate TCL 55R635 TV and a Roku Streambar Pro; bigger and louder would usually be better, but not in a Brooklyn apartment. I keep a Nintendo Switch dock connected to it, along with a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X so I can test any peripheral that comes out no matter what system it’s for. I also have a Chromecast With Google TV for general content streaming.

As for mobile gear, I’m surprisingly phone-ambivalent and have swapped between iPhones and Pixels from generation to generation. I favor the iPhone for general snapshots when I need to take pictures of products or cover events, but I also have a Sony Alpha A6000 camera for when I feel like photo walking.

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