Vertagear PL6000 Review: Like an Extra Firm Mattress

Besides comfort, a gaming chair’s overall look has a big impact on whether or not it’s a good fit for your gaming den. If you’re streaming or web chatting, your chair (especially larger gaming chairs) will make an appearance. And some people just don’t want to add an ugly piece of furniture to their home. Enter the Vertagear PL6000 and its seven different designs. But how comfortable is it?

Vertagear PL6000 Specifications

Design

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The Vertagear PL6000 comes in seven different designs, including camouflage for those of you who want to remain incognito during game mode. Our review unit came in a sleek white and black colorway and is currently on sale for $429.99. The usual price is $499.99, no matter which design pattern is chosen, and we don’t know when the current sale will end. The PL6000 upholstery is Vertagear’s own mixture of PU leather and PVC leather. This gives the same consistency and durability of PVC but the softness and easy to clean nature of PU leather. 

The black and white colorway is mostly black, with strips of white running alongside the backrest down to the seat and even on the inside of the wheels. White stitching outlines the chair, lumbar support and neck pillow. It really makes the color pop, especially on the parts of the chair covered in black. 

I enjoy the stitching since it makes the chair look like it was crafted with care and intention. This leads to the way it feels, too. I’m enjoying the combination of faux leather Vertagear created. Let’s not pretend we don’t spend 8 plus hours in our chairs. My chairs are no stranger to crumbs and spills, so it’s nice to know this material is easy to clean. I know what you’re thinking, “but can it handle sweat?” Well, yes it can. Although there isn’t cooling technology built into its Ultra Premium High Resilience Foam (UPHR), I don’t find myself getting completely stuck during long sitting sessions. 

The accessories on the chair match the black and white theme. The polyurethane caster wheels don’t squeak as they glide effortlessly across the hardwood floor and my low shag carpet. Getting the wheels to cooperate with a thicker shaggy carpet is a mystery to me, Scoob. The wheels are great; just expect some mobile difficulty on thick, lush carpets. 

This is a big chair: it weighs 68 pounds and can support up to 450 pounds, so that means this thing is constructed using some sturdy materials. The backrest is made from a steel frame, including the headrest. Vertagear is so sure about it that the company’s put a 10-year warranty on the steel frame alone. This is a bit weird because the overall chair warranty has a two-year limit. So if I damage the frame within the next six years, it’ll be replaced, but if I damage an armrest in the same amount of time, I’m out of luck.

The lumbar support is an external PUC leather sleeve stuffed with a memory foam pillow. It’s really firm, like too firm, like I can’t relax in it firm. Basically, this lumbar pillow is pretty intense, and I would have liked a way to adjust the lumbar support like on the SecretLab Titan 2020 series. Because this is memory foam, I doubt it’s going to soften up anytime soon. It could conform to my body over time, but I don’t like how firm it is right now. 

On the plus side, It seems like the accessories are made with comfort in mind. Even the 4D armrests contain a memory foam padded material. It’s soft enough to lean on but not so soft that an imprint is left. 

Like the lumbar support, the neck pillow is memory foam, which is also really firm. I barely use it because of how firm the lumbar is, and I can absolutely forget about reclining with it. Here’s the kicker about the lumbar support; it’s supposed to rest on the sides of the chair without any support. That doesn’t work. I had to jerry-rig the lumbar support clasps beneath the neck pillow clasp so that they’d stay on. Otherwise, the lumbar support clasps decided to slip off the chair and snap back like someone hitting you with a wet towel. Yikes! Who wants that type of jack-in-the-box uncertainty behind them? Not me, hence my “hook it behind the neck pillow” solution. Of course, that’s assuming I wanted to use the lumbar support at all, which in many cases, I don’t.

Let’s move away from the terrifying idea of being snapped in the back by lumbar support of all things. The five-point aluminum alloy base is lightweight, which during assembly didn’t leave me confident because the chair is really big and heavy. That’s exactly how it’s designed, to be lightweight, all while supporting and stabilizing a lot of weight.

Comfort and Adjustments

The PL6000 supports gamers who are up to 400 lbs and 6’8”. I am nowhere near 6‘8”, but I am about 5’8” and my feet barely touch the floor when using this chair. The chair’s industrial-grade gas lift is also very strong. It moves the chair up and down, elevating it from about 26 inches to 33 inches. The 33-inch setting supports someone who’s 6’8” tall. That being said, the 26-inch setting will support someone who is 5’9”. For ultimate comfort, I’d probably be better off with a PL1000 series chair since it supports people who are up to 6’2” and is therefore made with shorter gamers in mind.

My favorite thing about the PL6000 is the wideness of the seat! And again, I’m in love! This seat is 21.7 inches wide with a depth of 19 inches. The depth is shortened a bit because of the lumbar support. However, I enjoy this chair more without the lumbar support. I feel like it just ends up pushing me forward. It still helps me maintain great posture; I just can’t use the neck pillow with it because I don’t lean back enough when I’m using it. 

UPHR Foam covers the steel frame and prolongs the life of the chair because of how thick and dense it is. This is the only thing between my butt and a steel frame, and I can barely tell. The foam is really comfortable, cool, sturdy, and coats the backrest. The width of the backrest is 20 inches, which extends a bit past my body and kind of wraps around it, but not too much to the point where I feel trapped. It’s a very loose fit and not one of those granny church hugs where you wonder how she’s so strong at 92. 

The armrests are 4D, meaning you can move them in several different directions, and they are made from memory foam that is sturdy enough to support the sharp jabs of bony elbows everywhere without leaving an imprint. There are two buttons on the armrest that control its movement. They let you adjust them forward, backward, to the left and to the right. A lever on the outer side of the armrest moves the armrest down and up a maximum of four inches. I would’ve liked to have a button to turn the armrests inward and outward, though. Instead of a lever, you have to use brute force, which gets in the way when you’re adjusting. Imagine repositioning yourself, not knowing your own strength while leaning on your armrest and having it slip outward. It’s quite jarring and I don’t enjoy it. Overall, I like all of the functions, but I wish there was one more for clockwise movements. I love an adjustable armrest and it pairs well with a reclining chair.

An adjustable backseat reclining 80 to 140 degrees is great for posture, which is great news since this chair has one. If you’re someone who likes to lean forward, the seat comes with you. Or, if you need a quick power nap in place, just recline and move the armrest for maximum comfort. Chairs like Cooler Master R1S that don’t have moveable armrests make it a bit uncomfortable to recline because my elbows are left swinging in the wind like a hammock. 

This is my first interaction with PUC material, and it’s interesting. Finding out I can handle a three-hour Rainbow Six Extraction stream without getting overheated is refreshing. When I’m watching a great movie or livestream, I have a tendency to get glued to my seat one way or another, and this helps with that.

On this chair, I don’t use the lumbar support during my recline. And in most cases, I keep it off the chair — it’s easier that way. It’s not very comfy. I’m also a person who doesn’t like my bed super firm, so that could just be a preference thing. Remember how I said the lumbar support slips off the chair, and that if I want to use it, I have to jerry-rig it to stay in place by hooking it onto the neck pillow? The only setback to this solution is that the tension is a bit high and makes it hard to adjust the lumbar support up and down. 

On to the levers. Normally, I’m used to a racer-inspired chair having two levers, one to lower and raise the chair as well as turn the tilt on and off. The other to recline the chair. And then a knob to tighten and loosen how much tilt is allowed. That’s not the case on this chair, where I’m surprised by a cranking lever on the right side that controls tilt instead of a knob. I can crank the lever forward to increase tilt resistance and backward to decrease resistance. The cranking lever can also be tucked into the lever that controls the height of the chair. On the left side is the lever that turns the tilt on and off. Lastly, the lever on the seat controls the recline of the backrest.

Assembly

The Vertagear PL6000 prides itself on being easy to assemble. There are five pieces, the base made from aluminum alloy, the lever mechanism, the gas lift, the seat, and the backrest. Putting this together was easy until it was time to place the screws in the backrest to secure it to the seat. Instead of there being a bulky screw design on the outside of the backrest, there is a sleeve that covers up the bulky design. Meaning I had to figure out how to screw four screws blindly into place. At one point, I had three screws in but couldn’t get the last one in. To get it in, I had to unscrew the other three, take off the backrest and place it back on, hoping it was centered. It was, but without that setback, it easily would have taken an impressive 20 minutes to put together the whole chair. 

The backrest, being made out of steel, is heavy. The instructions call for you to place the seat upside down, screw in the lever mechanism, place the gas lift in, then the alloy base, then add the caster wheels. Let me tell you something: no. That would be too heavy to then flip it back over. So, I did what I always do. Wheels on the base first, place that right side up. Add the mechanism, then the gas lift, then place it right side up on the base.

Bottom Line

The Vertagear PL6000 has a minimalist look with its black and white colorway. There’s nothing flashy about it, which isn’t a bad thing. It comes to do a job, provide comfort and it does that. At the time of this review, this $500 chair has dropped to $429 and has a variety of colorways.  

If firm is what you’re about, this is your chair. The density, I think, is great for someone who needs the extra support and is tired of sinking into their chair. The levers are unique but complement the design. I like the idea of the crank lever for tilt tension because the knobs were hard for me to reach and gauge tension levels at the same time. With this lever, leaning back and testing the tilt is a cinch. I don’t think the lumbar support needs to be as firm, so it makes me like this chair a bit less. But that is a matter of personal taste.

As usual, I’m loving the variety of mobility the armrests have, and it adds to comfort. I would love it even more if the inward and outward functions on the armrests were controlled by buttons for more stability. The first time the armrests moved was when I was assembling the chair and I thought I broke it! 

If you’re looking to grab a chair with a wide base, some firmness and high density, the PL6000 is the gaming chair for you. It’s nice to see a chair that knows bodies come in all shapes and sizes and is looking to bring them all comfort, stability, and longevity…so long as they like firm backrests.