Humanscale Diffrient World Task Chair
The Humanscale Diffrient World Task Chair is your professional grade chair for office and home use with a solid construction for years of comfortable service and a fifteen year warranty.
Ease of Use/Performance: 25/25
Convenience/Storage 23/25
Appearance/Design 24/25
How much I enjoy 25/25
Total: 97/100
I consider office and task chairs an odd necessity that I now know is an important part of any office, especially the quality of construction and warranty details. I have been using the Diffrient World Task Chair for three months and am very pleased with its construction and durability.
I have been using task or office chairs for several years and have gone through more than my fair share of them, I have bought and thrown away three chairs in the past five years. I have also handed down two others to part time users in the family so that would be five chairs over the career of my writing that I have used in the same number of years.
These chairs cost from fifty to slightly over a hundred dollars so comparing the cost of several cheaply made chairs over the same time frame buying a better chair is surely the better option. If I paid five hundred dollars for one chair and it lasts more than six years I would be ahead of the game for my desk chair purchase.
The Diffrient World Task Chair is warranted at 15 years so if you have problems with the chair chances are you can things fixed. I have not found any complaints about the Humanscale warranty policy on the internet which is a good sign, I have not even found any complaints about the companies products.
A fifteen year warranty is about the right amount for this price point of a chair and I would be unsurprised to find out that Humanscale has very little problems in honoring their warranties. The company has plenty of awards in design and ergonomics for several of their products so they have a special interest in keeping their customers satisfied.
The Humanscale Diffrient World chair was designed by Niels Diffrient who also designed a couple of other Humanscale chairs winning several awards for those as well. The chair is one design that I consider good as the post for the chair does not have any swivel points but butts directly to the seats base.
I have had several chairs that have a solid pin for a pivot point for the chairs rocking or reclining and these have always been the main point of failure. The Diffrient World Chair that I received has the non-adjustable arms but the whole chair does move up and down while the seat moves forward and back.
The arms are fixed to the side of the chairs back but the chairs seat does move forward and back for varied comfort as well as the back reclining while the seat moves forward. The mesh back does allow some freedom of movement while it does not give a lot of lower back or lumbar support, it does have a nice equal support for the whole back.
The back of the Diffrient World tilts at a central pivot point as well as reclines backward for comfort which also slides the seat bottom forward. This one feature does make the chair worthwhile as a pivot point on the chairs base is a bad idea unless it is well designed and made out of strong materials.
The seat is made from a stretch material that has a cushioned foam under the fabric and then a mesh fabric below that is stretched across the base of the seat. This means your seat cushion is suspended on top of the U shaped seat base for a very comfortable feel on your seat.
The seat section does move forward or back by about 3 and a half inches for adjustment while the standard cylinder allows about 5 inches of movement up and down. You can purchase other cylinders for taller or shorter chair heights according to your needs, actually you can purchase several different features and color schemes.
The chairs rollers are on a five arm base and the standard rollers I received are very smooth and freewheeling, the chair easily rolls across the room with a small push. I actually had a problem when I first started using the task chair with pulling the chair out from my desk and having it slide across my small office.
The rollers are a two wheel set for each caster so each arm has the two wheel set that is on a single axle which is obviously on bearings. While I cannot see the bearings it does feel very much like bearings and not just a simple axle with grease on it which makes for smooth rolling but more importantly very durable casters.
Even after three months of constant use the rollers are very freewheeling, I have learned not to just push my chair but hold it when I move it around. The three months of use every day for at least a few hours but usually for eight to ten hours has shown the durability of the task chair.
You can buy the Diffrient World chair with or without adjustable arms, with a variety of cylinder heights, three caster choices and a wide variety of color choices. The chair price starts somewhere around $400 and goes up from there by a couple of hundred depending on the choices of many of the variables.
The cost is not a high one when you consider the design quality, durability and the warranty for the chair you get from Humanscale which all adds up to its value. One large point I would like to make with the durability of the Diffrient World chair is that I have found no signs of wear or even loose screws or bolts.
Humanscale has won several awards for their designs for other chairs as well as this one so the chair is recognized by both office and ergonomic users and reviewers. The chair may not have all the adjustments and lumbar support of more fully featured ergonomic chairs but it does have a great design with quality construction at a good price.
I am giving the Diffrient World Task Chair a very high rating as a fantastic task chair at a great price, check out the Diffrient World chair at Humanscale.com.