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Steelcase Series 1

Contract-grade adjustment and warranty at a price that does not require a spreadsheet.

Twelve years on everything beats a limited lifetime — #2

Overall

8.4

out of 10

Axis scores

Home is scored on these 4 axes. The total is their plain average — nothing is weighted.

Steelcase Series 1 — axis scores out of 10Horizontal bar chart of editorial scores out of 10 across 4 axes. Bars run from a shared zero baseline; longer is better. Steelcase Series 1: Value 8.4, Durability 8.8, Ease of use 8.4, Design 8.0.ValueSteelcase Series 1 — Value 8.4 out of 108.4DurabilitySteelcase Series 1 — Durability 8.8 out of 108.8Ease of useSteelcase Series 1 — Ease of use 8.4 out of 108.4DesignSteelcase Series 1 — Design 8.0 out of 108.0Editorial score out of 10 — higher is better
  • Value — What the same money buys elsewhere
  • Durability — Failure and fade reports past the one-year mark
  • Ease of use — Setup, daily operation, cleaning, maintenance
  • Design — Build quality and how it sits in a room

Specs

Back
Flexible LiveBack frame
Arms
4D adjustable
Warranty
Twelve years

As published by the manufacturer. We didn't measure these ourselves.

Is it for you

Buy it if

  • You want the office-furniture warranty without the flagship outlay
  • 4D arms — the adjustment most cheap chairs skip
  • A chair that will not look out of place in a home office

Skip it if

  • You are very tall or very short — one frame size fits most, not all
  • You want the seat depth range of the higher Steelcase lines

Arms move in four directions — height, width, depth, and pivot. Chairs at this level drop that specification first, and it does more than any other to keep shoulders relaxed at a keyboard. Steelcase built the Series 1 for buyers who wanted contract-grade seating and balked at contract-grade pricing, and the compromises are well chosen.

The back flexes along its whole height instead of pivoting at a single hinge, so it follows your spine as you shift and never pushes against one point.

Twelve years of warranty matches the flagship contract lines, and Steelcase honours it through its dealer network instead of a mail-in process.

One frame size is the meaningful difference from the chair above it in the ranking. Most bodies are fine with that. At the extremes of height, it is the reason to look at a sized alternative instead.

The seat is foam and the back is mesh. Foam is more immediately comfortable, and foam is also the component that will age, though at this quality level you measure that in years.

Assembly is minimal. It arrives essentially complete.

Owners consistently criticise one thing: the seat feels firmer than expected on first sitting, and most people stop noticing within a week. The chair was specified for eight-hour days, not for the first minute in a showroom.

Last updated . The scoring method is on how we rank.