Flexispot GC01 Gaming Chair Review: Low Price, Low Support

Investing in a gaming chair is just as important as getting your next couch or loveseat. The best gaming chair is something you’ll spend hours in -- likely for both work and play -- so you’ll want something with enough cushioning to make you feel supported and comfortable over long-term use. Whether you’re using your chair for long video calls, gaming sessions or a quick nap, you’re going to want a solid chair. 

The Flexispot GC01 chair ($159) looks like a typical gamer’s chair with its black leather,  angular red accents, and tiny neck pillow strapped into the headrest’s holes. However, the chair doesn’t feel super padded, and after spending a couple of weeks in it, I learned it’s not a good fit for people needing ample back support.  

Flexispot GC01 Specs 

Design

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The GC01’s PVC faux upholstery is red and black, with no other, flashier designs available. Its appearance doesn’t stand out at all among the many gaming chairs you’ll find scattered across Amazon and elsewhere online. But the chair's upholstery is easy to clean and also a bit simpler than with chairs featuring fabric upholstery, like the much pricier SecretLab Titan SoftWeave. Unlike that fabric, the GC01’s faux leather isn’t interwoven, so dust and dirt don’t get trapped in between.

The GC01’s current $160 MSRP is surprisingly cheap, but once you start examining the backrest, you start understanding why. The chair’s hard metal frame is easy to feel by squeezing the backrest or laying in the chair’s recline, which we'll get into in the next section. Luckily, the seat provides more cushion than the backrest, and you can’t feel the metal frame through it. 

Despite its price, the GC01 includes one design luxury that helps it stand out against competitors: a footrest. That’s hard to find in a gaming chair under $200. The Mavix M5’s footrest, for example, is $44 extra. The footrest is easy to attach to the bar located underneath the seat. When you want to use the footrest, you just slide it out and flip it over. When you’re done, withit, you flip the footrest over and slide it back under the seat where it nestles comfortably. During my testing, the footrest never slid out unprovoked.

The GC01’s is proud of its red-and-black theme and carries it all the way down to the removable pillows, base and wheels. The GC01 doesn’t have the most exciting look in the gaming chair arena, but the attention to detail is appreciated. 

Comfort and Adjustments

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Flexispot says the GC01 can hold gamers weighing up to 275 pounds but doesn’t provide any height recommendations.

The GC01’s backrest is 32.7 inches long total, but a few of those inches are eaten up by the seat. There’s a lever for pulling the backrest up higher by about 3 inches, and then you can tighten a knob underneath to keep the backrest in place. But at the backrest’s highest position, there’s a gap between it and the seat, which is unusual to see and makes me wary of reclining. 

As mentioned in the Design section, there isn’t a lot of foam in the GC01’s backrest, and what is there isn’t something extra premium, like memory foam or a bespoke take on it, such as what Secretlab often stuffs its chairs with. Because of that, the backrest just doesn’t feel comfortable. It gets even worse when you recline because then you can actually feel the metal frame through the stuffing. The backrest can be positioned at a 90-degree angle for straight posture or recline back 135 degrees. Usually, gaming chairs are very plush and filled with cushioning to accommodate long gaming sessions; the GC01 feels a bit empty in comparison. 

But if you want to use the GC01’s footrest, laying back is your best option. The footrest attached to the chair sits underneath the seat and rolls out for your comfort. The footrest, like the backrest, doesn’t fit my body though. Instead, the footrest sits under my knees leaving my calves and feet dangling over the front of it. It did elevate my legs — just not in the most comfortable manner.  

Now, this is a chair after all, so let’s talk about the GC01’s actual seat. It’s literally 19.3 inches wide, but because there are two bumpers on the side, the actual point of contact is only 15.7 inches. That’s notably more space than the slightly more expensive AndaSeat Jungle offers (14.2 inches). But the GC01’s seat bumpers will get a little uncomfortable after a short time if you have thicker thighs. The bumpers aren’t so dense that they immediately pushed my thighs in, but within 30 minutes I’d notice them rubbing up against me. At that point, it felt like the bumpers were actively digging into me.

The GC01 also comes with a removable lumbar support pad and neck pillow.The lumbar support pad is made from a slab of foam that’s easy to squeeze together, suggesting stuffing isn’t very dense, and it doesn’t conform to your body like good memory foam does. No matter where I positioned said slab, it didn’t add much support to my lumbar area. It did serve as a buffer between the metal frame and my body while helping me keep my posture straight. 

The neck pillow, meanwhile, is also removable. It’s stuffed with fluff, so you could refill it if it ever starts feeling flat. The GC01’s pillow naturally sits closer to the top of the backrest and attaches to the chair through the holes underneath the headrest. I’m 5’8”, and the pillow typically sat between my shoulder blades during testing.

Meanwhile, the armrests are very thickly padded but, again, not with memory foam or something better. Instead, it feels like the same foam from the lumbar support but packed more densely. Plus, the padding oddly didn’t stay in place during testing. Leaning on the armrests sometimes resulted in me accidentally pushing the foam to one side. Unlike the armrests on many other gaming chairs, like the Secretlab Titan or AndaSeat Jungle there are no adjustments available in the armrests. You can’t pivot, slide or raise them. 

Still, the GC01 offers a decent amount of adjustments, considering its price. By using the height adjustment level, the chair can be anywhere from 42.2-51.2 inches tall. That's significantly shorter than the AndaSeat Jungle, which is adjustable from 49.8-53.7 inches. That leads me to believe this chair is best suited for someone who is shorter than me (5’8”). 

In addition to the height adjustment lever, there’s a lever under the chair for turning the chair’s tilt function on or off, a feature we’ve seen in other chairs, like the SecretLab Omega. 

At 37.5 pounds, the GC01 is lightweight compared to rivals like the Jungle (50.7 pounds) and Omega (66 pounds). That made it easy to roll around. I had some trouble getting it over a thin carpet on my hardwood floors, but once it was on the carpet, it slid across as if it was gliding on hardwood. 

Assembly

Assembling the GC01 chair wasn’t hard, but the process differed from that of many other gaming chairs I’ve reviewed. It took me roughly 30 minutes to assemble the chair.

The first difference I noticed is that the armrests have to be screwed in completely, a clue that they won’t move once the chair is built. Instead of turning the seat over to attach a piston and the levers, the footrest attaches first, which is easy to do. Next, the lever mechanism connects behind the footrest toward the back of the chair. Finally, you set the seat on top of the wheels, where the piston is already in place. The backrest is attached to the seat by a T-Bar.

In a more familiar step, the backrest attaches to the seat by screwing in the side panels.

You can find instructions for building Flexispot’s GC01 here: [PDF]. 

Bottom Line

The Flexispot GC01 seems like a good deal to start. We’ve seen it for as cheap as $150, and that’s with some necessary adjustment options, like recline from 90-135 degrees, height adjustment, and optional neck and lumbar pillows that don’t add much but can at least help with posture. 

But the comfort gamers need for hours of gaming and work just isn’t there. There isn’t enough cushion in the chair to sustain 20-minute gaming sessions — let alone a full workday. 

I’m under 200 pounds, and it took less than an hour to start feeling aches in my back, thighs, and derriere. I don’t think someone over 200 pounds would have an easier time. 

You’re better off paying a little more for something like the AndaSeat Jungle, our pick for the best gaming chair under budget. It has a narrow seat but is still more supportive and also decently priced at $290. 

Unless you’re shopping for a chair for a child, your body will demand a little more love than the GC01 offers.