E-Win Flash XL Review - IGN
Racing-style gaming chairs are taking over, but while they may do for the masses, big and tall gamers shouldn't set out to buy whatever seat is getting the most love from reviewers. It's well worth it to instead seek out a big and tall gaming chair, as the structure of a racing-style seat will grow uncomfortable quickly if it's not a good fit. The E-Win Flash XL gaming chair, specifically the "FLH-XL" model, is an example of how the racing look can be employed on a seat that's better suited for bigger games. It has increased capacity in terms of weight and dimensions compared to a lot of its competitors, and yet E-Win isn't charging an extra-large sum for the seat, landing at just $499. Let's see just what E-Win delivers at that price.
E-Win Flash XL – Design and Features
The E-Win Flash XL isn't terribly ostentatious for a gaming chair. It comes in pitch black that's only adorned by the white E-Win logo on the headrest and pillows. There are a couple of other Flash XL models with color, but they use a different seat structure that'd undermine the role as a big-and-tall seat.
That dark design somewhat tames the swept in shoulders and sides that curve around the torso on the backrest and give the chair its racing aesthetic. E-Win accents the seat with some diamond-shaped stitching on the backrest and seat, but the chair remains pretty spartan beyond that. It's not too garish to double as an office chair in the back of a Zoom call.
It's not stunning to look at, though. Some of the padding and stitching doesn't line up perfectly with the frame. The aluminum base may be heavy-duty, but it and the caster wheels are about as basic and drab as you can get. While E-Win included 4D armrests that offer some convenient flexibility in their positioning, they're the same style we see on gaming chair after gaming chair. It's decent vertical and front-to-back flexibility, but limited rotational and side-to-side adjustability. The surface of the armrest is also mostly stiff and leaves my elbows aching after a while. I've found a set of memory foam covers can greatly (and cheaply) improve the experience on lots of these armrests though.
E-Win provides all of the flexibility I'd expect from a $500 gaming chair. The seatback can recline to almost horizontal, and it can push forward for an extra aggressive position that I find more useful for storage than actual sitting. The seat base also has a rocking feature that can lock in place. And the chair's height can go from 18.7 inches to 22.7 inches while supporting up to 550 pounds.
The weight support and the seat are the stars of the show for this chair. By my measurements, the seat is almost 19-inches wide near the rear and a full two-feet wide at its widest point, and it's got 21 inches of usable space from front to back. The key here is that none of that space is dedicated to metal bolsters on the sides that are often found on other racing-style chairs.
The chair is wrapped in PU leather and packed with foam that feels especially dense in the seat, though not quite as dense in the backrest. E-Win also includes a strap-on neck pillow and adjustable lumbar pillow, though the lumbar pillow is tedious to attach and remove, and neither feel like they were designed specifically for the ergonomics of this specific chair.
E-Win Flash XL – Assembly
The E-Win Flash XL wasn't too complicated to put together. Out of the box, the seat and armrests were already attached. Attaching the wheels, base, and multi-tilt mechanism was quick and easy. Attaching the backrest to the seat was a simple process but proved shockingly difficult because of how tight the fit was. It took a bit of muscle to force between the arms of the hinge mechanism that allows the backrest to tilt. All told, it only took about 20 minutes to go from boxed to built. The seat right out of the box suffers from that fresh foam smell, though, so I'd advise letting it air out somewhere for a day or two before you start using it.
E-Win Flash XL – Gaming
I've tested several decent seats that ultimately wore on me during prolonged sitting because they just weren't quite large enough. The E-Win Flash XL absolutely stands out from the crowd in this regard. I'm sitting at 6-foot-3 and around 225 pounds. I'm neither small nor narrow, and a lot of racing seat frames press uncomfortably into my hips or the outside of my legs. It's not always the end of the world for quick gaming sessions, but it goes beyond being a nuisance for an eight-hour workday or a marathon gaming session.
With the huge seat on the E-Win Flash XL, I've been far more comfortable over the long term than with the non-big-and-tall gaming chairs I've tested. It's impressive what a difference dropping the metal bolsters can make. I can even comfortably pop up to sit cross-legged, something a lot of 6-foot-plus gamers wouldn't dream of. With the seat's 550-pound weight limit, I never even hear it balking at my 225 pounds – no unusual creaking or groaning. The structure underneath the seat also feels considerably more robust than that on the DXRacer Master Module, which I had managed to break by putting all of my weight onto the armrests and thereby bending that structure.
I took the E-Win Flash XL on a journey around Dying Light 2's Old Villedor, forcing Aiden to do hours of hectic parkour running away from biters while I sat comfortably, for the most part.
It's not all cushy for the E-Win Flash XL. The foam inside the seat is very dense, almost to the point of being stiff. While that's likely to break in over time, it can be a bit overbearing after a while. The tail end of my sessions in the seat had my gams feeling a tad sore. That's been true of most seats, though.
Especially tall gamers may also run out of room. The backrest is a great length for me at 6-foot-3, and it's still got some room up top to make do for slightly taller gamers, but 7-foot-tall gamers would likely have the neck pillow wedge closer to their shoulders than where it should fit.
The armrests and seat adjustments helped me get an ergonomic position at my desk, and I didn't find I was having unusual back or shoulder pains after sitting in the chair. Where the chair falls short in ergonomics is with its added pillows.
The lumbar pillow sticks out more like a speed bump, forcing a sudden curve in my back rather than actually supporting in any way. That curving is doubled up by the thick neck cushion. I found it more comfortable without the lumbar pillow. Swapping for a different lumbar pillow improved matters substantially (I grabbed one off the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition).
It's an unfortunate balancing act for the E-Win Flash XL. For everything it manages to get right for big and tall gamers, it then proceeds to get something wrong, which nets out to a fairly average experience. It has the edge on cheaper or lower-quality chairs, but its only advantage over something like the similarly-priced Secretlab Titan Evo XL is that it has a bigger seat and higher weight capacity. That said, for a big and tall gamer, that larger seat may be a worthwhile advantage to get.
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