AndaSeat Kaiser 4 review: Legendary Lumbar and Awkward Armrests

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Two-minute review

AndaSeat’s Kaiser 4 is a chair that is entirely defined by its lumbar support, and how you can adjust it. Without a shadow of a doubt, everything pretty much revolves around that. And to be fair, it is impressive. It’s a well-implemented system, that, although mildly finicky to install, is seriously adept at what it does. It adapts to your personal preference, locks in place, and provides you with plenty of support and a little flexibility when you need it. 

Here’s the thing though, if you’re not a fan of lumbar support, and typically throw out those included cushions, and try and flatten the integrated rest as best you can, then you’re going to be massively out of luck. You just can’t adjust it to a point that it’s either flush with the back of the chair or flat, to have it not protrude into your back. That makes the Kaiser 4 incredibly divisive. Big fan of lumbar support? Great, you’re probably going to love it. Hate lumbar support with a passion? Then likewise the feeling is going to be the same towards the chair too.

Lumbar aside, most of the bells and whistles you’d usually expect are here. You get a seriously hefty bucket seat, magnetic headrest pillow, plenty of adjustment, a wide seat base, phenomenal build quality, and a remarkable assortment of different colorways over two material choices to choose from. Oh, and it’s comfortable too, although the PVC leather does feel a little smoother than most, making it slightly less breathable.

The only other downside is those armrests. AndaSeat has these pegged as five-dimensional. What that means in practice, is you can move half of the armrest up and down. How that’s helpful I’m yet to fully understand, but it’s there nonetheless. They’re also massive, and with that break in the middle, mildly unsightly. Plus they come with a flared back-end, which is less than ideal for long gaming sessions.

Whether you like the Kaiser 4 or not is going to entirely revolve around your own personal preferences. So, it’s not one of the best gaming chairs then? Well, it’s like a Dakar Rally car: highly specialized at doing one thing and doing it well, but take it out into the mean streets of Boston where it needs to be far more versatile, and you’re going to be in for a stressful time.

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Price and availability

• Pricing has dropped since launch
• No UK or Amazon availability yet
• Still pricey for what you’re getting

At time of writing the AndaSeat Kaiser 4 is actually only available from the brand’s webshop directly. you can’t grab it from Amazon either just yet, although it will be on the way. There’s been some trouble in the factories where the chairs are manufactured that has led to a slight delay in some of the colorways shipping to customers. So depending on what material or color you’re after, you might be able to get it today, or in the next couple of weeks.

Nonetheless, the pricing for the Kaiser 4 has also dropped since it first launched. It did debut with an MSRP of $649, then fell to $539 on a special offer, and is now settling at $569. That makes it a far more appetizing choice for those who may have been on the fence about it and its lumbar support, particularly given its $649 price tag.

This would put any UK pricing at about the £450 mark, but, sadly, the chair is only available in the US at time of writing, with availability in the UK, Europe, Canada, and the rest of the world, awaiting official confirmation.

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Specs

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Design and Features

• Broad and comfortable
• Armrests are just bizarre
• Super smooth PVC leather

Out of the box, this chair is an absolute monster. It comes in one large shipping box, with another smaller container inside of that, which holds all of the chair components, and accessories you’re going to need to build the thing. It’s seriously big, and impressively heavy too. Total weight clocks in at 75.53lbs or 34.26kg when fully unpacked and built. I highly recommend when you do get around to building it, that you unpack it wherever it arrives, move it piece by piece to where you’re going to use it and assemble the Kaiser 4 there.

Weight aside, it’s the included features and tech that really set the Kaiser 4 apart from the competition. Most notably of course is that integrated lumbar support. AndaSeat has been incredibly clever in how it’s built this. It features three adjustment levers in total. One on the base, and the other two on the sides of the chair itself. These allow you to reposition the central lumbar bulge, plus increase or decrease how aggressive that bend is. The third and final lever then allows the lumbar support to fully extend out or compress in, depending on your preference. This gives you the opportunity to really dial it in compared to the standard adjustment you’ll find in most chairs.

Lumbar aside, you also get a fairly aggressive bucket-seat design, situated on a comfortable cold-foam base. And this thing is big. Maximum seat base height is 25″ / 63.5cm off the ground, and the seat base width including those fairly non-aggressive side bolsters is 21.3″ / 54cm as well. Compare that to something like the Noblechairs Legend which comes in at 22.8″ / 58cm on seat base height, and 20.4″ / 52cm on the width, and those extra inches make all the difference, particularly if you’re above the 6’ / 183cm mark.  

Then there’s the odd armrests. It does honestly feel a little bit like a gimmicky marketing move to try and one-up the competition by adding another number. These are “5D armrests” don’t ya know? Yep. They move up, down, backwards, forwards, side-to-side, and have angle adjustment, as you’d expect from your typical bog-standard, basic, super dumb, 4-dimensional armrests, but the Kaiser 4’s have one additional range of motion. A half-pivot. Yep, you weren’t prepared for the half-pivot now were you? The armrest itself splits in the middle and allows you to alter the up-down angle of the front half by up to 40°. What advantage that gives you has yet to be unveiled to us, but according to the AndaSeat, it takes your elbow comfort to a whole new level. I’m not convinced. 

These things are huge as well because of it, unlike their AndaSeat Kaiser 3 XL counterparts, they’re absolutely massive with flared rear-ends. The padding is ok here, but otherwise, that’s all there really is to say about them. Not having them magnetically removable as well does seem like a backward step, but then, that is understandable given the range of motion on offer there.

AndaSeat Kaiser 4: Performance

• Build process is just okay
• Armrests are awkward
• Lumbar support is highly divisive

Opening up your AndaSeat Kaiser 4 box reveals an absolute arsenal of components for you to install. The chair itself still has a fairly similar build process to the rest of the market, yet the included manual AndaSeat stuffed in the box does a fantastic job of running you through the process anyway. The castor wheels are great, and the overall construction of the chair is solid and reliable.

One of the brilliant features that AndaSeat has built into the Kaiser 4 (and the 3 XL for that matter) is a sliding bracket for the backrest assembly. In short, the backrest of the chair has a formed bracket on the left-hand side (as you’re facing it), that slides directly onto the spring-loaded tilt adjustment. That makes it super easy to line the chair up with the bolt holes and secure it into position. Particularly helpful if you’re building the chair on your own, without assistance.

Unfortunately, I did have trouble installing one of the bolts into its thread, and securing the chair to its brackets, but a bit of wiggling, and loosening off here and there eventually led to a successful fitting. The screws are then hidden from sight with a set of magnetic plastic covers, and the rest of the build proceeds as normal.

Well almost as normal. The lumbar support’s third adjustment has a separate toggle that’s found in the base of the seat, and that’s connected via a hydraulic attachment that’s hidden away in the bottom of the seat base. If you’re not careful you can miss it entirely (mine was hidden away under the green strapping in the base. Grab this and pull it out before securing the mount for the gas piston, as it’s a nightmare to get to if you try to get it after. Once you’ve got it though, carefully attach the plastic housing and the cable line together, and then mount that to the underside of the chair and you’re pretty much done.

Similar to the 3 XL, (and the Secretlab Titan Evo), overall padding is exceptional in the 4. In fact it’s probably one of the more comfortable gaming chairs out there, and the PVC leather is a nice touch too. That said, It’s not flawless. The leather is a bit too soft, which could cause problems in hotter climbs, as it doesn’t feel that breathable. 

Then there’s the lumbar support, if you don’t like having things protrude in your back, or you enjoy the occasional slouch, you’re not going to like this chair. AndaSeat touts that this reduces muscle pain, improves your posture/ergonomics, and leads to better performance. In my case, the opposite was true, and no matter what I tried I couldn’t get the lumbar support flat enough to suit my particular style of sitting and working. But again, this is a chair specifically built around that feature. You don’t expect a rally car to set records at Daytona after all.

Lastly, those armrests and that 5D movement. Absolutely pointless, there was not a single moment where using them at that angle helped in any way shape or form. If anything, they got in the way far more often than not, because of that extra girth. It might be better suited for console gaming or mobile gaming perhaps, but for dedicated PC enthusiasts, absolutely not.

Should I buy the AndaSeat Kaiser 4?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider…

Not 100% sure about the AndaSeat Kaiser 4? Interested in other gaming chairs in the market? Then take a look at these two other gaming chairs we’ve reviewed instead.

How I tested the AndaSeat Kaiser 4

• Tested by multiple individuals
• All manner of seating positions tried
• In-depth lumbar testing

I spent over two weeks testing the AndaSeat Kaiser 4. I used it predominantly as my daily driver, working and gaming with it at my PC. I’m a 5’8.5” human (174cm) and weigh in at 165lb / 75kg. I built the Kaiser 4 by hand, from start to finish, with no assistance, and used it in video calls, emailing, writing, and gaming as well.

I also extensively tested both the lumbar support, in all manner of configurations, along with the 5-D armrests, to really try to understand how these operated, and whether they were beneficial to the end-user or not. I was also able to compare the Kaiser 4 directly to other chairs in my collection recently, notably the NobleChairs Legend which I reviewed recently, and the NobleChairs Icon.

On top of that, I also asked a number of close colleagues and associates to sit in the chair and give me their feedback as well. They range from 5’5 to 6’2 (165 to 180cm) and are an assortment of shapes and sizes. This gave me a good amount of feedback to temper my own subjective opinions for this review.