Puma Playseat review: Never the first choice

The Puma Playseat is a budget option compared to the vast variety of gaming chairs, but is it capable of providing necessary comfort?

As this review is typed in the Puma Playseat, my senses are heightened. Everything from the chair’s material to how the seat actually sits on the floor just straight up confuses me, I’ve only ever been perplexed by a chair once before.

Coming in at a cool $200, the Puma Playseat isn’t unique in the field of gaming furniture, but it presents an odd question: Why not splash $200 on an actual chair? We sat in it for over a week, and are ready to give you the lowdown.

Set up

Setting up the Puma Playseat is ridiculously easy. If you boiled it down, it’s pipe and some tarp to make a study hammock-like seat. Each connecting pipe is clearly labelled and we only had to refer to the manual once.

The package came with the headrest at the bottom of the seat and in my hubris, I spent about five minutes stretching the material the wrong way. However, once turned the right way, and a little extra effort to get it over the edge, it came together in about 15 minutes.

With something like a gaming chair, or other built furniture, putting it away for a move or just to make room for something, is a pain. Having had to do both in the last few months, being able to quickly dismantle the Playseat is a plus in my book.

Design

There’s a less delicate way to describe the Puma Playseat. It’s quite understated really, but something about its gamer aesthetics makes us uneasy. It sits uncomfortably long on the rug in my living room, which is a complaint that has been echoed by my partner several times.

For something so compact and easy to put away, the Puma Playseat quickly takes up a small lounge. It takes up a lot of room in my small home office too. It’s not easy to put into many places or stow out of the way. It’s why I’m a big fan of how easy the chair is to disassemble.

The fabric used is described as “breathable”, which also happens to mean that the chair is not going to soak up your sweat. But, due to the classic British weather, we’ve not really been able to verify these claims throughout my testing process.

A major problem is that the Puma Playseat just does not feel nice when the fabric is touching your skin. Testing the chair to its fullest, we sat back in it while shirtless and recoiled. Your mileage, obviously, will vary. It feels like a high-quality sports bag, or the middle fabric section on some cars, where the material is rough.

Even with a shirt on, as Playseat intended, the material used just never really sat right with me. This might simply be a personal issue, but something just never really clicked.

Is the Puma Playseat good for gaming?

The Puma Playseat is surprisingly accomplished thanks to its relaxed design, and hammock-like seat, making it an excellent way to cut through your gaming backlog. I spent a few hours playing Forza Motorsport, and leaning back and forth through menus or races, was a breeze. The gentle rocking motion helped us to relax and get immersed, and this is only better when using it to play portable games.

Even with the Steam Deck, leaning back into the chair was quite relaxing. It’s just not wide enough for us to truly just sit back and relax, meaning that if you’re sitting in it, you might have to lean forward the whole time, as I never really managed to get settled in while leaning back.

Whenever I came into the front room to play a few games on the TV, I sat in the Puma Playseat. Whenever I came in and read a comic, or settled with the Steam Deck, I opted for the couch.

Alton Brown, a Food Network legend, has a running bit where he hates “unitaskers”. Kitchen gizmos that have one purpose and aren’t really good at anything else. It’s not that they’re bad, they just feel useless outside of it. The Puma Playseat just made us feel the same. While it’s not bad at what it sets out to achieve, it never really fit into my life in the way that the company could have hoped.

The verdict: 3/5

The Puma Playseat is absolutely fine for a price of $200, but it feels like it has little to actually contribute outside of being useful to play games on a console. It has a sole purpose, which it is perfectly adequate for, and has seen us play through many hours of Forza Motorsport, but it’ll never be the chair I choose to sit in first.

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