Not truly customizable, but very comfortable

Despite its name, the DXRacer Craft Custom Gaming Chair isn't customizable, but it's a well-made and comfortable seat that comes in several wild designs.

DXRacer is a well-established gaming chair brand, but not one that has wowed us in the past. The Racing Series, for example, is functional, but does little to stand out from the pack, and doesn’t impress with its build quality. However, DXRacer’s newest line, the Craft Custom Gaming Chair, is a big step up in comfort and design. Its upholstery is smooth and supple, its padding is thick, and it features adjustable internal lumbar support like Editors’ Choice pick Secretlab Titan EVO 2022. That improved quality comes with a significant increase in price, though, and at $479 it’s hardly a budget gaming chair. It’s a good gaming chair, but one wedged between the less-expensive, also-excellent Cooler Master Caliber X1C, and the pricier, but even better-made, Titan EVO 2022. Also, the Craft Custom Gaming Chair isn’t really custom, despite its name.

The Craft is easy to assemble, thanks to a few, welcome design courtesies. To start, the armrests are already bolted to the seat when you remove it from the box, which eliminates an irritating assembly step. The chair's back has plastic plates on its side, with the right side featuring a bracket for the seat's metal mount. That makes lining up the screws and attaching the back to the seat a frustration-free experience. The rest of the process is standard: You bolt the bottom plate onto the seat's bottom, insert the wheels and gas cylinder into the base, then put the chair's top half on the gas cylinder.

While DXRacer calls the Craft its “custom” gaming chair, the custom aspect is just seven individual, but highly different, prefab styles; you can’t actually customize your own chair with your own colors or logo. DXRacer sent us the America Edition, which looks like Captain America’s costume with loads of blue, white stars, and some red and white stripes along the edges. There’s also Koi Fish, an east Asian-inspired chair in black and gold with Chinese characters; Rabbit in Dino, a yellow chair with a sassy-looking rabbit; Hello Human Cat, a pink chair that evokes, but is not actually related to, Sanrio’s properties; Spaceman, a gray-and-yellow chair featuring an astronaut; Thinker, a gray chair with Greek sculpture-inspired art; and Classic, a plain black chair.

That's more variety than most gaming chairs, but Secretlab still offers the most choices with dozens of licensed Titan EVO 2022 designs based on The Batman, Cyberpunk 2077, Game of Thrones, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and other properties.

DXRacer recommends the Craft for people who are under 5'7" in height and 200 pounds in weight. I’m fairly well above that (five foot eleven inches, 250 pounds), but I still found the chair supportive and spacious. The seat's sides didn’t press against my legs like the Andaseat Jungle 2 do, and the Craft didn’t feel remotely unbalanced or in danger of tipping over when I rocked back. The base is metal rather than plastic, which adds to the sturdiness.

The Craft features the usual gaming chair adjustments, along with one trick previously reserved for Secretlab. You can set the height, recline the back up to 135 degrees, and freely rock the chair back or lock it upright (or at any tilted position). The armrests are 4D, meaning you can set their height, horizontal angle, and their position left, right, forward, and backward. Finally, a knob on the right side of the chair's back lets you tweak the lumbar support's firmness, a feature first seen in Secretlab’s Titan chairs. This is in lieu of a separate lumbar support cushion, though a headrest cushion is still included. The knob only tweaks firmness, while the Titan EVO 2022 has a second knob that can set the lumbar support's height.

The Craft is upholstered in PU leather over foam, which is typical of gaming chairs. These aren’t fancy, proprietary variants of the materials you'd find in Andaseat or Secretlab’s chairs; just faux leather and foam. The faux leather is soft and supple, but doesn’t seem quite as sturdy as the Secretlab Titan EVO 2022’s upholstery.

The foam padding is quite solid in the seat and along the back where the chair makes contact with your body. That said, it isn’t as complete as the EVO 2022 or Cooler Master Caliber X1C’s through-and-through padding; the sides of the seat are suspended faux leather with little to no padding. This isn’t a huge issue, since the necessary support is still there, but it’s another case of the Craft's sturdiness lagging a bit behind those other two chairs.

I found the Craft comfortable and supportive, holding me ergonomically at all angles while maintaining its balance. Its faux leather feels nice, and the adjustable lumbar support provided a variety of firmness for my lower back without jabbing into it like some pillows do. It approaches the Secretlab Titan EVO 2022 in build quality, though it doesn’t quite reach it due to its lighter padding and flimsier-feeling upholstery. Still, it’s a good sit.

DXRacer has been taking the right design lessons from Secretlab. The company's previous chairs disappointed us, but the Craft is comfortable, well-made, easy to assemble, and comes in several striking designs. It isn’t customizable despite DXRacer describing it as a “custom” gaming chair, but it’s still a good sit. That quality comes with a price, though, and at $479, the Craft approaches the even-more-solid Secretlab Titan EVO 2022, and costs much more than the $399 Cooler Master Caliber X1C. Consider a Craft if one of the designs calls to you, but otherwise the fabric-upholstered Caliber X1C feels just as good for less money, while the $519 Titan EVO 2022 is a step up in quality.

Despite its name, the DXRacer Craft Custom Gaming Chair isn't customizable, but it's a well-made and comfortable seat that comes in several wild designs.

Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox.

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.

Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!

I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. I’m an ISF-certified TV calibrator and a THX-certified home theater professional, and I’m here to help you understand 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and even 8K (and to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about 8K at all for at least a few more years).

Home theater technology (TVs, media streamers, and soundbars)

Smart speakers and smart displays

I test TVs with a Klein K-80 colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, a HDFury Diva 4K HDMI matrix, and Portrait Displays’ Calman software. That’s a lot of complicated equipment specifically for screens, but that doesn’t cover what I run on a daily basis.

I use an Asus ROG Zephyr 14 gaming laptop as my primary system for both work and PC gaming (and both, when I review gaming headsets and controllers), along with an aging Samsung Notebook 7 as my portable writing station. I keep the Asus laptop in my home office, with a Das Keyboard 4S and an LG ultrawide monitor attached to it. The Samsung laptop stays in my bag, along with a Keychron K8 mechanical keyboard, because I’m the sort of person who will sit down in a coffee shop and bust out not only a laptop, but a separate keyboard. Mechanical just feels better.

For my own home theater, I have a modest but bright and accurate TCL 55R635 TV and a Roku Streambar Pro; bigger and louder would usually be better, but not in a Brooklyn apartment. I keep a Nintendo Switch dock connected to it, along with a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X so I can test any peripheral that comes out no matter what system it’s for. I also have a Chromecast With Google TV for general content streaming.

As for mobile gear, I’m surprisingly phone-ambivalent and have swapped between iPhones and Pixels from generation to generation. I favor the iPhone for general snapshots when I need to take pictures of products or cover events, but I also have a Sony Alpha A6000 camera for when I feel like photo walking.

PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

© 1996-2022 Ziff Davis. PCMag Digital Group

PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of PCMag. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant.