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We use chairs every day and when you use a chair every day, you forget what real comfort is in a chair. Sometimes you get so used to a chair that you can’t imagine changing it and you probably don’t even think about it, I know it’s happened to me. It’s with that same mentality that I look at gaming chairs and think,… who would pay that much for a chair… it’s a chair… and this is the intro into my review of the Cougar Armor Gaming chair.
Let’s go over some of the features of this chair.
Features
- Full Steel Frame
- Breathable PVC Leather
- Iron Shell Cylinder
- Head and Lumbar Pillow
- Gas Piston Lift Height Adjustment
- Adjustable Tilting Resistance
- 3D Adjustable Arm Rest
- Backward and Forward Adjustment
- Left and Right Adjustment
- Height Adjustment
- Rotating adjustment
- 180° Fully Reclining back
- Weight Limit: 264.55 Pounds
- 1 Year Warranty
It’s a big chair, so it comes in a big box,… let’s see what’s inside.
Yeah, that’s a lot of stuff I know, but in the end, you get a chair. Before we get to the chair though, we have to build it and before we can build it, we need to account for every part in the manual, we need to make sure its complete.
This was basically the intro, but let’s check out the individual pieces and then get into the build video.
[nextpage title=”Piece by Piece”]
As I showed you before, here are all the parts.
Let’s check each and every piece, but how do you know what comes inside?
We have to take a look at the manual,… I know, we can’t build it yet but the manual shows you all the pieces it brings.
Here we go, here we can see all the pieces it brings. Let’s start with the screws.
You can find the screws in this bag, let’s open it up and make sure they are all there using the legend in the manual.
#1: 4 x Socket cap Allen wrench screws, Check.
#2: 12 x locking washers, check. Wait a minute…. There’s 13 here. It’s always better to have an extra than to be missing one, so that’s a bonus.
#3: 2 x Round Washer Phillips head screws.
#4: 2 x Screw caps
#5: 8 x Sparrow screws
And don’t worry, you don’t need to have any tools for this, Cougar includes this dual-purpose tool. As you can see from the picture, one end is a Philips head bit.
While the other end is an Allen wrench, so they got you covered there.
That’s about it for the bits and the tools, now let’s get to the individual pieces of the chair.
A: Backrest.
B: The Seat
C/D: Left and Right Screw/Brace covers.
E/F: 3D Adjustable Left and Right Armrests
G: Tilt Mechanism and Piston Lift Height Adjustment.
H: Iron Shell Piston Lift Cylinder
I: Telescoping Lift Cylinder Dust Cover Shroud
J: Reinforced based
K: Polyurethane Caster’s
L: Lumbar Pillow
M: Head Pillow
Alright, this is everything that comes inside the box. Looks like nice stuff, but right now it’s just a Lego kit that hasn’t been assembled, no fun but filled with promise and when you build it… the skies the limit. OK, I am excited, let’s get to the building process and I will walk you through it step by step.
[nextpage title=”Building the Cougar Armor”]
This is the flip side of the inventory sheet we just went through. It’s decent but it can be better. So what I thought, rather than show you picture by picture… like you see above I thought I would walk you through the entire process in a video.
So you see, no extra tools required, the included dual purpose Allen wrench/Philips head screw driver took care of it all.
In the video, I installed the Lumbar pillow incorrectly, but here you can see the chair built 100% correctly.
Now that it’s built, let’s take a look at its features, a little of its use and go in a little deeper into the chair and its build quality.
[nextpage title=”Features and Use”]
As I just showed you, here is the Cougar Armor Gaming Chair.
This chair has some nice features of which we are going to over right now. First off, the seat, back and pillows are made of Breathable PVC leather but don’t freak out, no animals were harmed in the making of this review.
PVC leather is not made out of animal hide, it’s a synthetic leather made out of polyvinyl chloride which means it is animal cruelty free, very durable, easily cleaned and is fade and stain resistant. When PVC leather first came out it was known to be very sticky and non-breathable which meant it made you sweat and this would mean it would be incredibly uncomfortable for anyone to sit on if maybe you were wearing shorts or something, but Cougar’s got you covered.
The faux leather is made with tiny pores as seen above that allows this material to breath so it feels great after sitting on it for hours. Also, unlike many other chairs, the foam on this chair that pads it is not overly plushy which means it will keep its shape for a long time and still allows it to be comfortable.
Adding to the comfort, Cougar provides a lumbar pillow to help keep your back comfortably curved supporting your lower back.
It also comes with a pillow for your head or neck.
The head and lumbar pillows are fitted with these straps cleverly held in place by the groves and contours in the chair kept in place with the snap on straps.
Aside from the PVC leather and foam, the groves add to the comfort of the chair keeping you in place embracing your body with its ergonomic design…
Notice how the sides of the chair are raised up keeping you in place, along with the back of the chair.
Also, because of the straps not being attached to a notch on the chair are easily adjustable and can be removed as well.
The inside of the chair is made durable with a full steel frame.
Coming down a bit on the chair, we find the 3D arm rest, here’s what makes it a 3D arm rest.
This button allows you to slide the arm rest forward and backward.
This button allows you to slide the arm rest left or right.
No button for this one, but you can rotate the arm rest.
And no chair would be complete with a way to lift or lower the arm rest. Just pull up on this notch and pull the arm rest up or down.
So, there’s your 3D, should be called 4D right?
The lever here allows you to recline the seat 180° and while it did hold me at that 180° recline as you saw in the build video I was a bit scared that it would flip over on me but it did not.
Also, since we are on the subject, aside from the recline, you can also tilt the chair and also control the level of tension at which the chair reclines.
Under the chair, you can turn this nob to adjust the tension at which the chair tilts back and forward at.
Back to the reclining and tilting part, I highly recommend you lock the tilt in place before reclining. To lock it, push the bar in towards the chair and to unlock or free it, pull it outwards. This tab also acts to allow you to raise or lower the lift cylinder for height adjustment.
Here’s a look at the underside of the chair so that you can see the bar, knob and cylinder height adjustment.
The base is nothing special but let’s take a closer look at the casters.
The casters kind of look like low profile racing wheels, pretty nice.
The back of the chair, aside from the grooves and curves I mentioned before, we can see the Cougar embroidery.
Also, on each side of the seat, we find zippers though the handle is not on it so that you won’t be opening and closing it. The zipper does also help in the cost being that the stitching would cost more to be all around the chair and cost more to assemble.
On the headrest, without the pillow we find some more Cougar embroidery.
Both of the pillows are also embroidered with the Cougar logo.
Alright, so that it about it for the review, now let’s get to the final part my Final Thoughts and Conclusion and see if you agree with me.
[nextpage title=”Final Thoughts and Conclusion”]
Please take this review coming from a person that has never used a gaming chair before, but I have always been a huge gamer and have always used chairs, that might qualify for experience. The Cougar Armor is so very comfortable, the most comfortable chair I have ever sat in. I can’t say I use the head pillow much, but the lumbar pillow just makes it that much more comfortable. I was born with a slipped disc on the lower part of my back and this pillow helps my back so much.
The faux PVC Leather feel very good and does not cause you to sweat because of the pores. I have always used leather seats or maybe faux leather seats but they always make my legs sweat because of the materials used. Chairs you can usually pick up at office department stores are built with some form of leather, a very shiny material that visibly has no pores and if you sit on it for an elongated period of time will cause your legs to sweat a bit, I did not have this problem with the Cougar Armor.
I am 5’6 and weigh about 264.something, so let’s say 265 and this chair works fine for me and the chair is rated to hold up to 264.55lbs. I can easily see this chair being fine for taller people as well. My wife and kids have also sat in this seat and they had much of the same expression as I had, none of them had sat in a gaming chair either and they want one too now.
Let’s see the Pros and Cons
Pros
- Breathable PVC Leather feels very nice
- Animal Cruelty free faux leather
- Head and Lumbar Pillow add to the comfy feeling
- 3D Adjustable Arm Rest is pretty cool
- 180° Fully Reclining back
- Package includes everything need to build the chair
- High quality components
- Affordable compared to name brand chairs with similar features
Cons
- Base is plastic and not metal
- Stitching is not all around the seat, the rear sides are zippers with no head
- Only a 1 year warranty
Honestly, I was grasping at straws for Cons but nothing can be perfect. The base is plastic which surely adds to the weight limitation. If the base was metal it would surely be able to hold more but then the cost would go up. As for the stitching, this is not something that bothered me at all and I know helps in the lowered cost. The stitching being completely along the side would take assembling the seat at the plant take a little longer and time equals money, another thing Cougar does to help keep the cost down.
The other thing they have done to keep the cost down is only offering a 1 year warranty which is a little scary. A longer warranty means that they trust their own craftmansship but sadly, it seems a 1 year warranty is industry standard for gaming chairs, I compared cheaper chairs and more expensive chairs, all with 1 year warranty so I can’t count this against Cougar. A longer warranty would also mean the cost of the chair would be higher.
I really can’t find anything wrong with this chair, it is amazing. All components are made with high quality parts, great features and beyond anything is sooooooo comfortable. I have to give the Cougar Armor gaming chair a 5 out of 5, Editors Choice Award.
Great job Cougar and thank you Champchairs for providing me with this chair to review.
We are influencers and brand affiliates. This post contains affiliate links, most which go to Amazon and are Geo-Affiliate links to nearest Amazon store.
I have spent many years in the PC boutique name space as Product Development Engineer for Alienware and later Dell through Alienware’s acquisition and finally Velocity Micro. During these years I spent my time developing new configurations, products and technologies with companies such as AMD, Asus, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA and more. The Arts, Gaming, New & Old technologies drive my interests and passion. Now as my day job, I am an IT Manager but doing reviews on my time and my dime.