The Fractal Refine is easily among the best-looking and most comfortable gaming chairs on the market. Its sliding headrest and seat base are particular comfort highlights while overall build quality is excellent too. Its price is also competitive for what is clearly a chair option.
Pros
Classy styling
Excellent overall comfort
Height adjustable head pillow
Mesh, fabric, and Alcantara finishes
Cons
No lock on armrest forward/back slide
No recline, only tilt
Slightly sharp edge to base
The Fractal Refine is the company's first attempt at a gaming chair, and the company has all but nailed it first time. On styling alone, it's clearly a bit different to the gaming chair norm, but it's not just a pleasant shade of gray that defines the Refine. It also houses a handful of really meaningful ergonomic improvements over the vast majority of other gaming chair options.
It's no surprise, then, that the best gaming chair guide. Some other chairs offer more style and ergonomics customization options, but as a whole, the Refine is one of the best all-round options out there.
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60 kg (132 lbs/9.45 st) — 125 kg (275 lbs/19.6 st)
Warranty
5-year mechanical, 3-year fabric
Upholstery options
Nylon mesh, fabric, Alcantara
Frame Construction
Steel and plastic
Adjustments
Title angle, recline, seat slide, headrest slide, armrest height/rotation/slide
Design
The most obvious place to start assessing the Fractal Refine is to look at its design. Fractal is already well known for crafting classy, minimalist PC products in a range of categories, with the company mainly known for its wonderful cases such as the Fractal North. The Refine continues this trend, with a look that eschews the racing seat style of many gaming chairs – benefitting both comfort and looks – while keeping a sense of the clean lines and appealingly muted colors of its stablemates.
By and large, a lot of the styling can be seen as form following function, with features such as the sliding headrest inherently looking cleaner than chairs that use headrest cushions held in place with elastic. However, there are plenty of subtle details that clean up the look. These include the fact that several of the main controls are integrated into the side of the seat, rather than being on stalks sticking out from under the seat. The lumbar apparatus on the back is also incorporated into an elegantly sweeping frame, while the armrest uprights have just the right forward angle to balance the look of the chair.
The chair is available in three main styles: mesh, fabric, and Alcantara. The former uses a similar tensioned mesh design, as made famous by the Herman Miller Aeron (available here) to provide springy for your back and behind. Meanwhile, the fabric and Alcantara (which is a type of faux suede commonly used as a finish for car interiors) versions have a more traditional padded seat base, but then use a similarly tensioned back as mesh chairs.
This back design is unlike many gaming chairs that have enormously thick, padded seat backs. Instead, the Refine has an open frame showing on the back, with just a thin layer of fabric held in tension by that frame. This back design really helps make for a lighter, more elegant look and feel than many gaming chairs.
In of colors, the fabric version is available in this mid-gray color with a black base and hardware, or a very light, warm gray color with white hardware. The mesh version comes in two very similar color options, while the Alcantara model is only available in black. The Refine finishes off its generally light look by having hollow castors, to the extent that you can see through the middle of them.
Features
For the most part, the Refine delivers the standard handful of features you'd expect from a gaming chair. It goes up and down, it tilts back and forth, it rolls around on its wheels, and it has armrests that move in more dimensions than seems possible. However, there's a fair bit that the Refine does a little bit differently.
Starting from the top, one of the most distinctive features of this chair is its headrest. Instead of the strap-on headrests of most past gaming chairs, this one is locked to the chair and easily slides up and down, with an ample range of movement of 130mm to accommodate different heights of sitters.
If you find you don't get on with the headrest, or you want to wash the removable cushion cover, though, you can unhook it via a button on the top of the chair. You're then left with a couple of plastic-lined holes that slightly disrupt the look of the chair, but it's still a reasonably neat finish.
Moving down the chair, in the lower central portion of the already quite convexly-curved back is the adjustable lumbar . This can be slid up and down, and a turn of the dial pushes the curved, horizontal lumbar bar into and out of the back fabric.
Moving onto the armrests, these can slide up and down, in and out, forward and back, and they can be angled inward and outwards. All these adjustments lock into place except one, which is the forward and back sliding motion. This means you constantly slide the arms forward and back whenever you press your hands into them to get up or sit down. It's a really odd oversight in an otherwise well-designed chair.
Meanwhile, the seat's base can slide forward and back when loosened via a handle on the right side, and this is a huge ergonomic benefit over many gaming chair alternatives. Next to this handle is the gas lift release, which lets you bring up the chair when not seated or lower it when sat down. Also on the right is the tilt tension adjusting lever. You can twist this to loosen or tighten the force, pushing the back of the chair upward when you lean back.
Notable by its absence is a recline function. You can tilt back in the chair, with the seat and back rocking back in semi-unison, but you can't just lower the back completely independently of the seat. On the left is the lock handle for the tilt function, and you're able to lock the seat back into any position down to roughly a 45-degree angle.
The final adjustable aspect of this chair is the castors. These have a safety mechanism, which means they don't roll until there's weight on the chair – so the chair doesn't fly away from you if you only slightly lean on it. However, if you remove each wheel, there's a little switch that lets you turn off this feature. Funnily enough, I assumed this feature was on when I first tried the chair as it didn't seem to roll all that freely. However, it turned out this was in fact the free-rolling setup and the castors just aren't particularly fast ones.
Comfort
My initial impression of the Fractal Refine's comfort is that it's excellent. However, over several weeks of use, I did find a few grumbles. Starting with the good stuff, the convex curve of the main seat portion is a delight to see and feel in this chair. So many chairs get this wrong by having a flat or sometimes even upward-curving front to a chair, which just causes the front edge to dig into your legs. You get none of that here.
The adjustability of the seat length is also a godsend for a tall person like me. The extra leg further reduces pressure on your legs and generally spreads out the of your body. One slight issue I noticed, though, is that your backside can get slightly trapped between the seat and back when you tilt the seat back, and then return it to upright. That's because the gap between the two slightly opens up as you tilt, then closes up again as you come back up. It's not uncomfortable but requires a quick readjustment wiggle.
The seat's padding is also ive, despite being relatively shallow and not all that squishy (though softer than a lot of gaming chairs). However, I did notice the general build-up of warmth compared to my usual Aeron mesh chair – a gripe I have with any non-mesh gaming chair. As such, I'd definitely recommend the mesh version of this chair for warmer environments (I borrowed a mesh version of this chair for a short while and it's very comfy too).
The contouring of the seat back is excellent too, with ample extra from the lumbar bar. It's a little tricky to adjust the bar when you're sat down – you have to lean forward to take the pressure off it – but it's otherwise easy to move about. The back also has none of the tendency to push your shoulders forward, unlike some gaming chairs, allowing for a good open posture.
The headrest is another triumph, with its excellent contouring and easy adjustability allowing you to quickly set a position to gently the head when sat upright. It does need readjusting slightly when tilted back, but this is easy enough to do.
Arm comfort is another triumph, as the armrests have among the softest padding I've encountered on the dozens of gaming chairs I've tested. The adjustments are all really precise and easy to use. However, the lack of forward and back slide locks really is annoying, even if it does mean you don't need to worry about pushing the armrests out of the way when pulling your chair in close to your desk.
The only really major issue, then, is the lack of a straight recline option, as sometimes it's nice to be able to just fold flat for your afternoon nap. Moreover, the tilt function isn't the best. The tension adjustment didn't seem to make much difference, so I always found the chair felt like it wanted to push me upwards, with me needing to rest my feet on something to keep me propped backward.
Also, one tiny observation. The top edges of the five-point base are quite flat, with a slightly harsh edge. I found it a little uncomfortable to come into with these points when I was just wearing socks at home.
Price
Priced at $549.99, the Fractal Refine is in the same ballpark as most gaming chairs, and for its fit, finish, and features, that price feels fair. Notably, the fabric, mesh, and Alcantara finishes are all the same price.
Alternatives
Secretlab Titan Evo 2022
Our long-running favorite of gaming chairs is the Secretlab Titan Evo 2022. Available in three sizes and dozens of designs, this chair offers masses of adjustability – its removable armrest tops and magnetic headrest cushion being highlights – and great comfort for a similar price to the Refine. Its overall look isn't as sleek and its back isn't as sophisticated but it remains a top choice.
The Fractal Refine is, by and large, a triumph for a first run at a whole new product sector for Fractal. It's a classy-looking, feature-rich, and comfortable chair, with its comfort firmly planted in the realm of practical all-day sitting. It might not feel the softest, but it doesn't leave you fidgeting or with a bad back.
Its clever height-adjustable headrest is a particular triumph, as is the lumbar and the contours of the seat – the length adjustment being a particularly beneficial feature. We wish the armrests could be locked from sliding back and forth, and that you could recline as well as tilt the chair, but for a genuinely practical all-day-sitting chair, it nails the brief.
