This may sound surprising, but I was getting fed up with my very expensive desk chair that I’d had for a while. I found that I couldn’t really lean back, and the seat wasn’t deep enough for how I like to sit.

I was ready for a new chair. I saw the Flexispot C5 Ergonomic Standard Office Chair, and while it’s not an exceptionally fancy chair, it has turned out to be one that I am happy with.

Here is my review of this desk chair, which I’m using from working remotely in my home office. Maybe it’ll be a home office product that can elevate your space, or your ergonomics.

What I like about the C5

I’m sitting in the C5 office chair as I write this article, so I have a hands-on experience of reviewing it.

Head rest

At this moment, I’m leaning my head against the headrest. I hadn’t realized previously that this is a small yet helpful feature to have in a desk chair at home!

It’s nice to have a headrest that has a little bit of “bounce.” It also seamlessly adjusts to tip forward and back. The movements are smooth, and this is a cinch to do.

Arm rests

I also like the very easily-adjustable armrests, which are firm and truly easy to adjust with a simple squeeze of the levers.

Lumbar support

This is a big-ticket item for me, and I feel like it is exactly what I was missing in my former desk chair. Despite having a chair from one of the leading brands of office products and coming at a very high price, I would get a back ache from the desk chair I was using before now.

The Flexispot C5 Chair has adjustable lumbar support. This is cool because I’m short, and much below the average height for women. There’s an up/down and forward/back adjustment. Being as short as I am, I adjusted it with a few tugs to the lowest position and with the most intense lumbar support, close to the seat back.

What I don’t like so much

No office chair is perfect, and I’m not sure what I’d want in an office chair I myself designed from scratch, but here are a few nit-picky critiques.

Design

The design of this chair in particular is a little too futuristic for me. I like something a bit more subdued overall, and a little more traditional, as I have my workspace for working from home in our family room.

The C5 chair looks a tiny bit like a spaceship, and when I think of it that way, especially with the jet black color, it’s a little intense for me and for the room.

Adjusting the lumbar support

The screw knob for bringing the lumbar support forward and back is very clear; however, it takes a second to figure out that you have to yank the lumbar support panel.

Unboxing and assembly

Overall, we were able to assemble the C5 chair in about 15 or 20 minutes. This is pretty on-par with what we expected, and what it would take to put together any type of desk chair for a home office.

We have a few tips, if you’re choosing to set up the C5 chair, or if you’re thinking of getting it. Here is what to keep in mind, from our experience doing this:

  • It can be hard to figure out which screws go where, but if you reference the “count” of the screws, you can figure it out. (For example, if the directions state there are “four of these,” you can see which screws those are.)
  • There are helpful stickers that say “FRONT” to guide you.
  • Save tightening everything for the last step, in case you made mistakes or if you need to make adjustments. I’ll note that this is my tip I’ve learned from putting together quite a few Flexispot products over the years.

A few more things to know when putting it together

A good pointer I can give you is that for the base of the chair and the main construction piece where the rolling base screws in, this also controls the height!

The square piece that has the height lever doesn’t say which piece is the “front,” but you can figure it out (like I did) because the big bracket faces “out.”

Update: you do need to adjust the armrests, because you need to make sure that the armrests are fully tightened. This is because it’s hard to adjust them afterwards, once you’ve had the height-adjusting lever get in the way a little bit.

Helpful Tip

My tip: It makes it a lot easier to put the entire seat with the armrests attached on your sofa, while you are building it (see my photos here). At this point, the headrest, seat back, seat and base are all still not attached to one another.

Why choose this desk chair?

Choosing a desk chair is hard, especially with all the options out there from big retailers. Honestly, that is one of the hardest things about online shopping, for me at least: the level of overwhelm created by the number of available products is just too much for me.

Because I was already familiar with my Flexispot standing desk and Dan’s Flexispot bamboo monitor stand, I knew I could trust a Flexispot desk chair to be true to expectation.

This chair is satisfactory quality, and everything about it works nicely. The armrests adjust, the seat adjust, the seat firmness is great and the wheels roll nicely. Overall, I give it 10/10 for having no issues to report.

How to buy it

The best and only way to get the C5 Ergonomic Desk Chair is from the Flexispot website. Right now, only the “OC” line of desk chairs are available at Amazon.

If the C5 chair becomes available on Amazon, I’ll update you here with a link.

More Flexispot home office inspiration

Dan is also trying out the simple Flexispot montior riser, which you can read about in his Flexispot Bamboo Monitor Stand review.

We’d like to thank Flexispot for providing us with the product mentioned above; while Flexispot sent us the product as a gift, all thoughts in this review are our own and this piece is not sponsored.