Secretlab Titan Evo NanoGen Edition review

I'm going to be honest, when Secretlab got in touch to say it was shipping me a brand new gaming chair with the subject line "the new Secretlab chair you've been waiting for..." I was expecting something more than another Titan Evo. That's not to denigrate the classic Secretlab chair—there's a reason that it still sits uncontested atop our best gaming chair list—but that in itself was a reworked version amalgamating two of its predecessors.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's a maxim more PC gaming brands could do with having tattooed on the inside of their eyelids when so many will change for change's sake to hit some artificial, iterative release cadence. And yet, and yet, change is vital to avoid stagnation, especially if you've become comfortable on the summit of your industry.

I can quickly point to Intel with CPUs, and Corsair with mechanical gaming keyboards, and if Secretlab wants to avoid falling behind its own competition then it needs to keep on innovating.

And, for me, I thought that meant producing something that maybe didn't look exactly the same as every Secretlab chair produced in the past five years or so. Maybe something so ergonomically ahead of the curve that all those copycat chairs hoping to catch people out on Amazon by looking almost identical to a Titan Evo would have to go back to the photocopier and get some new designs out to their mass production facilities.

I didn't have "paradoxical breakthrough" with "next-generation materials" combining "benefits previously thought impossible in the same material" on my Secretlab 2024 bingo card. I'll give you that sounds like peak marketing hyperbole, but if you're going to have a go at improving a classic gaming chair design you could do a lot worse than making sure it's more comfortable and more durable than the previous edition. Even if it does read like Secretlab has found some kind of vibranium/unobtanium weave it can lay on top of a new chair.

But holy hell, I'd ask you not to spike the price by some $200 while you're at it.

Before I get to that particular pain point, let me just talk about the upsides. The Titan Evo is a modern classic, a great gaming chair that is both reliably comfortable and remarkably resistant to the rigours of life as a piece of modern gamer furniture. But, while our unit in the office looks as good today as it did the moment our Jacob pulled it out of its packaging, I'll admit that I'm not wild about the chair's 'ride'.

I've got a lot of padding myself, I'll grant you, but I've always found the Titan Evo feels just a little too hard. This is more supportive than most softer chairs, and probably better for you in the long run, but I've found myself shifting around a lot more on the older chair than I do with the new NanoGen edition.

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So, why is that?

The twin support pillars Secretlab is building its new chair upon are two new material implementations, namely its new NanoGen Hybrid Leatherette and the NanoFoam Composite it's using for cushioning the tush.

The first is its new coating for the entire upholstered part of the chair, and it is genuinely lovely. Even as the days have gotten colder the fine-weave leatherette Secretlab has created feels supple and soft, and far more pleasing to the touch than the still-actually-pretty fine finish the Titan Evo enjoys.

Of course, we've come to expect that finish to be immaculate, and it is here, too. The stitching is fine and consistent, and though I almost take that as read with a Secretlab chair, it's always worth noting that level of quality you do get with the brand.

Secretlab is calling this new leatherette its most resilient yet, which is hard for me to attest to after only a few weeks parking my posterior upon the NanoGen Edition. But, as I said before, the Titan Evo—which has become the office bike—still looks brand new today, and if the new material could only match that I'd still be sold. And I'm a ergonomist's nightmare; I can't help but sit with one leg tucked under the other as my sitting safe space, which means shoes getting scraped against leatherette on the regular. I've killed Noblechairs in a relatively short time by exposing the bare metal frame after repeated abrasions.

Of greater import, however—especially for those who, like me, found previous Secretlab chairs too hard—is that NanoFoam Composite. Now, I'm not going to go full Aniston, but the science bit is in combining the company's cold-cure foam (the hard stuff) with a softer lightweight topper which provides a softer cushion. There's also something about the bonding material used between those layers, but it suffices to say the end result is a really comfortable seat, that feels both soft and supportive as you move around, all at the same time.

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This is the paradox Secretlab's marketing department is on about. Soft and resilient in the leatherette as well as soft and supportive with the cushioning. And it works. This is the most comfortable gaming chair I've ever sat in, and definitely the most comfortable a Secretlab has ever felt.

With those two newbie features you're getting the rest of the Titan Evo experience, too, including the lovely magnetic memory foam neck pillow, though now with those PlushCell memory foam armrests (mmm, soft) as standard. That means 4D armrests, though with a 50% higher adjustment range. Honestly, that's not been a huge deal for me, I'm a set and forget kinda chair guy, so the range doesn't hit hard so long as I can get myself set up in the first instance.

And yes, that set up is easy. I've seen folk almost break bones setting up gaming chairs (you know who you are) but the Secretlab Titan Evo might not be as simple as pulling it out of the box in one piece, but putting it all together takes less than 30 minutes.

But I still have issues. My first is a throwback to my outgoing chair. In all honesty, I'm not really going to miss the Mavix M9 which has graced my desk for the past few years. It was a fine chair, and I dig the slighter frame and meshwork, but it was a pain to set up (I ended up having to craft one functioning chair from three separate units which arrived with me in various states of destruction). But its tensioned tilt was something I didn't know I was going to miss until it was gone.

Secretlab talks of adjustable tilt tensioning, but honestly from one extreme of the tension knob to the other is maybe the difference between the chair tilting back when you look at it or when you breathe on it. So, it's a locking thing not a tilt rocking thing.

My biggest struggle with the Titan Evo NanoGen Edition, however, is the price. At $549 for the regular-sized Titan Evo (itself $100 more than it retailed for at launch), or $628 with those plushy armrests, it's a fair chunk of cash, but actually not a bad price for a really well made piece of furniture. That aforementioned Mavix M9, on the other hand, is a $999 chair and isn't as comfortable or supportive a seat for the money. Nor has it retained its looks or comfort over time.

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But this NanoGen Edition adds near $200 ($250 if you ignore the armrests coming as standard) on top of the original's sticker price. That's a huge mark up for the extra layer of comfort the "next-generation" materials deliver. If you want the absolute best Secretlab chair experience, then yes, this is it. But I don't know if that extra cost is justified by the overall, comparative experience.

Maybe it is justified by the cost of material R&D, but how you quantify an extra $200 worth of comfort, now that's going to be the hard sell.

There's an easy 'the best just got better' kiss off here for the review, but I feel it's just a little more tainted than I would like by the extra cost Secretlab is asking for the NanoGen Edition. If this were a wholly different chair from the Titan Evo it would maybe be easier to swallow, but the knowledge there's a far cheaper—and still excellent—alternative readily available out there, well, that's just still living rent-free in my brain as I finish this out.