Choosing the right gaming chair can be a titanic task. We spend long hours every day in front of the screen, so we need to pay attention to the tiniest details.
On top of all the features we need to check, like ergonomics, adjustments and design, there’s one equally important item: the upholstery. What to choose? Leather or fabric for your gaming chair?
In this post, we’ll analyze one by one all the pros and cons of each option so that you can easily decide which one is for you. Are you ready? Let’s go!
Leather or Fabric? A Short Summary
Here’s a brief summary of the main characteristics that you need know about these materials:
- The faux-leather (or PU-leather) is a kind of synthetic leather. It’s a good compromise between price and durability compared to those gaming chairs made of real leather. It’s easy to clean and maintain.
- The real leather is a material of animal origin. Its main characteristics are the nice and pleasant touch, together with robustness and durability. In general, real leather is considerably more expensive and therefore is reserved for the very best gaming chairs.
- Fabric is usually a synthetic material manufactured with textile fiber, and its main advantage is, of course, breathability. On the other hand, cleaning a fabric gaming chair might be a nightmare, especially to eliminate drinks or food stains.
But you probably knew all this already. Let’s go a bit deeper into the pros and cons of each option.
Fabric Gaming Chair
We have already mentioned about the main advantage of this material: breathability. That’s possibly the perfect choice for you if you live in a warm place or you tend to get sweaty during tense games.
Unfortunately, you won’t find many alternatives in the market. The PU-leather is generally more accepted among the gaming community, and the manufacturers usually will have less options in their catalogues (like Corsair and its T3 Rush gaming chair). On the other hand, fabric materials might be available in less conventional color schemes, and that’s a good point if you want to stay apart from the classical racing design.
In any case, fabric gaming chairs have several problems that we must mention here, in particular the maintenance. If you want fabric, you should be ready to fight dust mites, and stains are more difficult to remove. Especially fluids might penetrate deep inside the material and leave a permanent stain.
Do you have a pet? In that case consider going for a PU-leather gaming chair if you don’t want to suffer the pain of removing the sticky hairs from it.
- Breathable.
- Different designs available, compared to the classical PU-leather look.
- Difficult to clean.
- Might not be as durable as PU-leather.
PU-Leather Gaming Chairs
The most common material in the gaming industry, mainly thanks to its affordable price. Easier to clean and certainly more resistant than fabric, the PU-leather is the perfect protection against accidentally spilled drinks (it can happen quite often).
But at the same time, the impermeability can be a weakness as well as a strength. In summer it might make you sweat and it might give you a cold feeling in winter. So the choice depends on how sensitive you are with this kind of things.
In any case, it all depends on the material’s quality. The cheap gaming chairs will obviously choose inexpensive PU-leather, whereas the premium brands like Razer invest large amounts of money on multi-layer upholstery that offers a feeling much closer to real leather and a decent degree of breathability.
En termes de durabilité, on ne doit pas s’inquiéter autant que sur les fauteuils en tissu, mais il faut quand même faire gaffe à la qualité du revêtement. Le simili cuir risque de se craqueler avec le temps.
In terms of durability, PU-leather tends to perfom well, possibly even better than fabric. But again, it all depends on the quality. Cheap synthetic leather may end up cracked after a couple of years.
- Easy to maintain.
- Relatively cheap material.
- Less breathable.
- Often quite smelly the first days.
Real Leather
As you probably know, genuine leather is significantly more expensive, and therefore it’s not really common in the gaming chairs market. You need to look for the high-end brands to find this type of material, like the Secretlab TITAN or the premium models of the AK Racing Series.
Real leather is highly resistant, which immediately translates into a longer durability. You can be sure that your chair will last for many years. And on top of that, this material is quite breathable and offers a pleasant feeling that even the best PU-leather cannot imitate.
So, putting everything together, genuine leather offers the best experience to the user. But you need to be ready to pay its price.
- Breathable.
- Resistant and very durable.
- Very expensive.
- Limited choice if you like colorful chairs.
Conclusion: leather or fabric gaming chair?
If the money is not a problem, the answer is really straight forward: go get that real leather chair.
Unfortunately, most of us need to pay attention to the price. In that case, I clearly recommend you to ask yourself the following essential questions:
- Do you sweat easily?
- Do you have pets?
- Are you allergic to dust mites?
- Do you eat or drink often in front of the screen?
Depending on what your answers are, you should have already quite a clear picture if you should choose a leather or fabric gaming chair.