Asus ROG Destrier Ergo review: comfortable and robust, but not perfect

With the Destrier Ergo, Asus ROG offers a chair with a mesh fabric cover reminiscent of a Herman Miller or Giroflex. This unusual design comes off classy for a gaming chair. Thanks to sophisticated lumbar support, a wide, flat seat and a high load-bearing capacity, it should be the perfect fit for corpulent users. As a beanstalk, I therefore refrain from testing. I pass the chair on to my buddy Jens, a car mechanic who usually advises me on problems with my old Smart Forfour Brabus.

The Destrier Ergo was made available to us by the manufacturer for a long-term test. That was nine months ago, and Jens has been using it ever since. Even without his final verdict, I see that as a good thing. Am I jumping to a hasty conclusion?

Read on to find out what makes the chair stand out first, then its downsides.

The positives: mesh design and sophisticated lumbar support

What Jens and I see as a Miller-inspired design, Asus ROG calls cyborg-inspired. It doesn’t really matter whether the Destrier Ergo resembles an exoskeleton with a mesh cover or anything else; we like it. It looks and actually is robust.

To this day, the lightweight textile material shows no visible or tangible signs of wear. Despite daily use, it’s still nice and taut.

Sturdy aluminium base and simplified operation

The cross (with 75-millimetre PU castors) and the base of the chair are made of an aluminium alloy. Together with the hard-wearing textile cover and a gas pressure spring, this ensures a load capacity of up to 150 kilogrammes. The recommended user height is 165 to 185 centimetres. Jens can let himself fall into the chair with all his weight, which doesn’t impress him despite the free-floating construction.

The Class 4 gas strut hasn’t lost pressure over these nine months. Jens is surprised, as even with his Noblechairs this has been a problem in the past after just three months.

The straps are a special feature. They’re attached to the controls for height adjustment (right) as well as those for adjusting the tilt and seat depth (left). This eliminates the need for fiddling with or operating the levers.

Large seat without side cushions

A big advantage over other gaming chairs is that the seat has no side cushions. No uncomfortable pinching. At the same time, thanks to a width of 57 centimetres and a depth of 50, it’s generously sized too. The chair itself weighs just under 25 kilogrammes and is 72 centimetres wide, 84 long and between 129 and 137.5 centimetres tall. The seat height is 43 to 51 centimetres.

Backrest with versatile lumbar support

The lumbar support can be adjusted to the individual, natural curvature of the spine in the lumbar region (lordosis) in two ways: by up to seven centimetres vertically and by one centimetre in depth.

This support is particularly good because it feels comfortable and offers enough resistance to prevent unintentional shifting. Jens doesn’t have to struggle with back pain during testing. The backrest can be locked at four points in a tilt range between around 100 and 135 degrees. The highest position should be at 90 degrees, but it’s more like 95 to 100. Sitting upright is only possible without the backrest. Unlike other chairs, you can’t rock this one.

Bad from the start: headrest and armrest «are loose»

Jens can adjust the headrest to the right height. The pillow feels pleasantly soft against the skin and hardly warms up at all. However, the support has too little contact pressure in the step setting, it moves at the slightest touch from below or above. It doesn’t match the rest of the good-quality chair.

The armrests themselves are made of high-quality material and the rubberised surface feels great. It’s soft on the outside and becomes harder and harder further in. There are also separate, slightly raised and even softer areas for the elbows. In addition, the armrests can be rotated 360 degrees, intended for gaming with a smartphone. Their height can be adjusted by up to 14 centimetres. However, they don’t move fully vertically, but at a steep angle. This isn’t quite great, as it means the support surface is further forward for shorter arms and further back for longer ones.

So far, the material hasn’t suffered any abrasions due to heavy use and, surprisingly, the surface hasn’t become greasy over the months. Nevertheless, one thing annoyed Jens from day one. According to ROG, the backrests can be locked in height and are also protected against accidental swivelling. However, the function for sliding the backrests forwards and backwards has no locking mechanism. As a result, the backrests repeatedly move out of position unintentionally. In addition, the distance between the two backrests can’t be adjusted – it’s 51 centimetres.