Thermaltake Argent E700 – Design and Features

The Argent E700 doesn’t look like any other gaming chair we’ve reviewed. It has the appearance of a captain’s seat in a space destroyer, and would go perfectly with an Alienware gaming PC, truth be told. It features a high-backed plastic shell polished to a reflective gloss and is available in an array of bright colors (plus white and black, which look the best). The seat is wide and u-shaped with armrests that insert into the body of the chair instead of bolting onto its underside like most others.

It’s clearly a gaming chair, but not ostentatiously. In Glacier White or Storm Black, you could take it into an office and pass it off as modern chic. But next to a gaming PC, no one is going to question that the E700 is made for gamers, and is awfully fancy at that.

Designed by Studio F.A. Porsche, it’s a chair derived from outside the gaming world and instead from the realm of luxury goods. This Porsche probably isn’t the one you’re thinking of. Studio F.A. Porsche is a subsidiary of the sports car brand but remains an independent design firm, spending its time developing futuristic architecture, home goods, and superyachts. It does occasionally dabble in the tech world. You may have seen its name on the Acer Book RS laptop or the Huawei Mate 40 RS smartphone. For the most part, however, you’ll find its designs in other sectors far removed from gaming.

The Argent E700 carries through all of the brand’s luxurious future-minded flourish. Every element ties together perfectly. In my undergraduate work, a professor asked us to define art. He presented us with paintings, music, architecture, sculptures, as well as iPhones, laptops, and yes, furniture. The Argent E700 is an excellent example of where art and product design meet and create something that is both functional and inspired.

Points of polished metal guide you on a visual tour of the chair on first impression. The heavy aluminum wheelbase matches the silver of the gas piston perfectly, drawing your eyes up to the smooth glossy contours of the seat base. Those curves carry gracefully across the back and around the other side. It’s vaguely car-like, the way one panel transcends into the next. A pair of silver handles are inlaid into either side of the seat like car door handles and replace the usual levers for height and recline. They certainly look nicer, but also highlight the relatively limited means of adjustment the chair offers.

The armrests also have silver accents. The design is interesting, the way they insert directly into the body of the chair. By inserting into the chair instead of bolting onto its seat, it makes the base feel more like one whole unit instead of a collection of assembled parts.

Finally, a thick logo plate is set into the backrest at shoulder height and draws your eyes to the real leather upholstery. There’s no fake PU or “vegan” leather stand-in here; this is the real deal. At around one millimeter of thickness, the leather feels robust yet soft to the touch. Red stitching creates a nice accent against the black fabric. The back and seat are perforated for added breathability, and it worked well to stave off sweat in my hot upstairs office.

There are no pillows to mask the look Porsche has so carefully designed. There is an attached headrest for added comfort, however. It’s soft, plush, and just thick enough to be comfortable without forcing your neck forward. It can be adjusted up and down two inches to match different heights. It doesn’t move once it’s in place, which can’t be said for other parts of the chair.

To talk about a gaming chair in this way may seem high-falutin, but the E700 warrants it. It seems so intentionally designed, so considered, that it stands apart from any other gaming chair I’ve used. You can see the artistic considerations throughout its design.

But artistic inspiration will only take you so far. A chair also has to be a good fit for your body and well designed around comfort even beyond looks. The E700 is large: those curves add girth that will take up space behind your desk. But it’s not a big and tall gaming chair. The recommended height range is between 5’6” and 6’2” with a weight limit of 331 pounds or less. I suspect the shape of the seat will make it uncomfortable to sit in before you hit that limit, but you won’t be at any risk of cracking the aluminum base if you’re on the heavier side.

The padding on the chair is thick. Thermaltake spared no expense with the foam. The seat is lined with over four inches of high density molded foam. There’s a bit less on the back and headrest, but there’s enough where you’ll never feel the frame hidden inside. It’s a bit on the stiff side but not bad, so it was comfortable to sit in right away without the need for a break-in period.

The armrests aren’t nearly as padded. In fact, they could use more padding. These are the standard hard foam armrests we’ve seen on gaming chairs for years without the benefit of locks for angle, width, or depth. They’re very adjustable but far too easy to push around by accident and are likely to leave your elbows sore.

The handles on either side of the chair look great and work well. It’s much easier to just reach down to the side of the base than grope around under the chair when you want to make an adjustment. The height adjustment works exactly as you would think, but recline is a little different.

For starters, the recline handle doesn’t actually make the back recline at all. In fact, the back of the chair is always unlocked and freely moves as you lean back. There’s a fine-tuned spring mechanism that allows it to follow you when you want to sit up or kick back and never feels like it’s fighting you. It’s very natural and allows you to have a rocking motion without the seat base ever actually moving. So instead of controlling recline, the second handle actually works to lock the backrest into one of four preset positions.

This isn’t strange for a premium office chair, but is definitely more limited than a typical gaming chair. If you pull the handle between its set angles, it will lock into position when you hit one of its defined stopping points. The recline isn’t that steep either. I’ve never been one to lay down and nap in my gaming chair, but it’s just not possible here. It also irks me that the handle stays extended when the back is locked, ruining the smooth contour on that side. Sure, it’s not a big deal, but it goes completely counter to the smooth curves of the rest of the design.

There’s also a sparsity of adjustment options for a chair of this caliber. For $1,300, I expect more than 4.7-inches of height adjustment and an angle lock. There’s no true rocking, which I already mentioned, but there’s also no angle adjustment to the seat or ability to adjust the tension on the spring to lock in the resistance you want. You can’t adjust the depth of the seat. The backrest is fixed height, and there’s no way to adjust the position or curvature of the lumbar support.

The design of the seat also doesn’t play nice with different sitting styles. The hard U shape of the cushion means crossing your legs is out. I even found tucking one leg underneath me uncomfortable, and I’m not a big guy at 5’8” and 160 pounds. You’re locked into a normal sitting position for better or worse.

I don’t mean to imply it’s all bad. It is comfortable when you’re sitting normally. And if you’re within its recommended specs like I am, I didn’t really find a need to adjust the seat depth or spring tension in the backrest anyway. Even the handle, which grated on me at first, faded into the background. You’re rarely looking at it and the backrest works well enough that I didn’t find the need to lock it all that often at all.