This office chair packs 19 points of adjustability and looks a bit like a crab

When is a mesh chair not a mesh chair? At first glance, Hinomi’s H2 Pro looks like a padded, cushioned office chair, but closer inspection reveals that the material is actually a thick mesh tightly suspended on a curved frame. It’s just one of a series of surprises that Hinomi has packed into this premium priced and intelligently designed chair.

With 19 points of adjustment, Hinomi has crafted a task chair that can be fine-tuned to the body shape of the user, making it a contender for one of the best office chairs for back pain.

For creatives and programmers who regularly spend the working day hunched in front of a monitor, and who struggle with standard office chairs, it could be the perfect thing, although its looks may prove divisive.

Comfort & ergonomics

Even before you’ve adjusted all the knobs and levers to get it set up to your liking, the H2 Pro is very comfortable. There’s a little pneumatic give in the spring, and the mesh is engineered to have just the right amount of tension, the sort of firm support you get from a decent pillow.

That’s before you get started on the adjustability. This is a chair that boasts more levers and dials than the cockpit of a 747. In fact, there are so many points of adjustment that there’s a mystical lever I only found after a couple of weeks of using the thing. It’s the chair equivalent of an escape room.

From the bottom up, the chair goes up and down, the seat goes back and forth and raises at an angle, the entire back section tilts back with adjustable resistance, the armrests … the armrests do so many things that they warrant their own section.

Things the armrests do

• The armrests rotate horizontally about 70° in each direction and tilt upwards by 30°
• The arms the armrests rest on (the armrest armrests) rotate horizontally about 15° in each direction
• The armrest armrests pivot upwards 90°, basically getting them completely out of the way
• Each entire armrest structure moves up and down by about 12 cm

And then the lumbar support moves up and down and backwards and forwards, the back support tilts backwards and forwards, and the structure holding the back support and the lumbar support moves up and down. And, finally, the headrest angles up and down and goes backwards and forwards. Phew!

Now, some might argue that this is too much adjustability, but those people are wrong. There’s something reassuring about being able to tweak just about every little bit of the chair to your liking, but, of course, it’s a good idea to double-check online guides or consult with a pro to ensure you’ve got everything in its right place.

At 6’ 4”, I’m taller than average, and I can struggle with chairs, but I could dial in the Hinomi H2 Pro to be just right, with an upright, supported, feet-and-forearms flat position that felt comfortable from the morning cup of coffee to the afternoon tea. It’s currently unseasonably hot here in the UK, and the mesh never feels sweaty or sticky.

The Hinomi H2 Pro isn’t just for work, though — it reclines by a surprising degree to become a comfortable lounge chair for reading and gaming. In this case, an optional extra footrest can flip out to support your legs or feet, like you’re a little hedgehog rolled up in a cosy ball of pixels and endorphins and dribble.

It has one final trick up its sleeve: with the armrests flipped up, it’s easier to tuck into a desk, but the entire back can also fold forwards and the armrests fold inwards. In this configuration, the chair becomes much more compact, and it also resembles a robotic crab.

It’s not a lightweight chair — all those adjustable bits bring the total weight to 24kg — but the ability to fold it down and stick it in a cupboard means you might not have to lift it to hide it from view.

Design & aesthetics

From the word go, the Hinomi H2 Pro feels like a chair that costs a lot more. The highly sprung mesh carries the illusion that it’s a deeply padded and plush cushion. Is it wrong to feel this excited about a mesh?

Elsewhere the blend of plastic and metal carries the idea that it’s a well-engineered piece of furniture — nothing feels cheap here. The most important bits — the curved supports at the back and the five-star base — are crafted from solid aluminium, while the adjustable parts are finished in muted grey plastic.

It’s not always grey, though: we were sent the grey colourway, but it’s available in a range of shades, including black, white, pink and light green, all of which inevitably look better than the option you choose. As the mesh soaks up liquid, there might be some issues with staining on lighter shades, which is worth bearing in mind if you’re using this in a family setting, or if you’re just plain clumsy and/or drunk.

Admittedly the H2 Pro isn’t quite the nicest-looking of chairs, and certainly not as sleek and graceful as the Branch Aire I reviewed recently. The H2 Pro has a kind of insectoid design; its rounded panels recall the thorax of a beetle, while its chunky armrests can look like the jacked forearms of a praying mantis.

But that’s only from the front: around the back the organic shapes are propped up with an exoskeletal support system, a bit like one of those oddly creepy sci-fi movies where an actor’s face is rotoscoped onto a robotic body.

It’s certainly unique as far as chair designs go, and it results in a chair that looks quite different from the front and back. There are far uglier office chairs out there, though, and there are sexier ones. The H2 Pro sits squarely in the middle.

Specs

Assembly

A nice touch here is that the Hinomi H2 Pro comes with a pair of white gloves, presumably so you don’t get greasy fingerprints all over the chrome surfaces. Of course, I didn’t wear them, and of course, I got greasy fingerprints all over the chrome surfaces.

Regrettable gloves aside, the chair is mostly assembled out of the box and very easy to put together: attach wheels, pop the hydraulic lift in, and stick the whole assembly on top. The headrest requires attaching with a couple of screws, and there’s a back panel to hide the rear mechanisms, which I’m sure only needs to be attached to give you a feeling that you’ve had some meaningful input into the chair’s construction.

Price & value

$/£759 is quite a lot of money to spend on a chair, but this is quite a lot of chair. I’m not sure you could confuse it for a much more expensive chair, but at the same time, it feels solid, and each and every one of those points of adjustment clunks and clicks satisfyingly and reassuringly.

The H2 Pro also fixes some of the issues we had with the Hinomi X1, switching the ugly rubberised butterfly lumbar support for a more aesthetically pleasing one-piece mesh, and giving further adjustment to the armrests and height, to accommodate more shapes and sizes of human.

The closest comparison in this price range is the $499 Branch Ergonomic Chair Pro, which has a more airy and aesthetically pleasing look, and still includes 14 points of adjustment. In this case, it’s a toss-up between looks and practicality — the Ergonomic Chair Pro isn’t quite as versatile as the H2 Pro, but it doesn’t look like a prop from a Cronenberg movie.

This review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Sihoo’s M18, a really lovely chair that somehow costs less than $/£200, and that we always recommend. However, the M18 includes a mere five points of adjustment, and its maximum recommended height tops out at 6’ 2”, whereas the Hinomi H2 Pro will accommodate anyone up to a doorframe-scraping 6’ 7”.

Should you buy?

The Hinomi H2 Pro is a chair for the kind of people who love to get everything set up so it’s just right. If you always have to spend a few hours customising your PC or phone to your own personal style, or you take pride in perfecting your work, this is the chair for you; you can adjust almost every single little bit of it to accommodate you, and you’ll feel that satisfaction that it’s your special chair whenever you sit in it.

However, not everyone is like this, and we’d recommend alternatives such as the Branch Ergonomic Chair Pro if you want something that will feel comfortable when it’s fresh out of the box, or if you’re put off by the H2 Pro’s biomechanical looks.

Personally, through testing, the Hinomi H2 Pro has become my favourite office chair thus far; I’m the kind of person who loves to get my working setup just right, and it accommodates my stretched-out physique. It feels comfortable, looks robust, and it’s packed with clever, practical touches that make it well worth its price tag. The 10-year warranty is the reassuring icing on this cake of comfort.