In a Nutshell:
The Boss Double Plush Mid-Back Chair is a bit of a hidden gem in the world of value-priced furniture. It has basic functionality only, but it’s a surprisingly good chair. It’s recommended for anyone 250 pounds or less who’s on a tight budget.
Value for the Money
Comfort
Brand Reliability*
Aesthetic Flexibility**
Overall Rating
3.5/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Anyone 250 pounds or less who’s on a tight budget.
Are you in a pinch and need a decent, basic office chair that doesn’t cost much? Are you looking for something a brand offers with at least some name recognition and experience behind it?
If you answered yes to either of those questions, you’ll like what you read in this review and sigh in relief.
Boss Office Products may not have the brand heft or name recognition of the bigger, nationally recognized brands, but they’re not complete unknowns. They’ve been in the office furniture business for many years. Although they deal in low-cost imports, their products, particularly Boss office chairs, are a cut above what you usually expect in the budget-priced furniture market.
It is important, however, to set your expectations appropriately. The Boss Double Plush Mid-Back chair isn’t an award-winning, stunning chair. It will not win any beauty contests and won’t wow you with a stellar list of highly adjustable features.
It will provide a comfortable chair and benefit from some basic ergonomic features. It’s designed and optimized for light to moderate use, and as long as you keep those facts in mind, you’ll find this to be a pretty capable little chair.
Are you interested in learning more? If so, read on, and we’ll tell you what the Boss Mid Back can do and where it falls short.
Key Features of the Boss Double Plush Mid-Back Executive Chair
Function over form. That’s the first phrase likely to spring to mind when you see the Boss Double Plush Mid-Back chair for the first time. The designers weren’t interested in taking any chances where aesthetics were concerned. This model looks exactly like what it is—a reasonably comfortable office chair.
It’s not ugly, but its elegant design won’t wow you. It’s designed to get the job done and, otherwise, to fade into the background. The good thing about that is that it fades quietly into the background of whatever room you put it in.
Available Colors
The chair is available in black, silver, brown, and pewter, making it suitable for almost any home or office.
Upholstery
Before looking at the basic statistics defining the model, we must pause to say a few words about the upholstery. It’s not leather or PU. It’s “Leather Plus,” a bonded leather and PU mixture.
It’s still not great upholstery but is a cut above conventional PU. While it’s a little more durable than PU, it’s not incredibly durable, so while you can expect the upholstery to hold up a bit better than its peers, it’s still not designed to last for years.
You can expect about two years of useful life from the upholstery if you take good care of it and only use the chair lightly to moderately every day. About half that time if you insist on buying this chair for heavy daily use.
Breathability
Another thing we were a bit surprised and impressed by is this: PU and bonded leather both suffer from breathability problems. The longer you sit in them, the hotter and sweatier you’ll get, which is another reason why we only recommend this chair for light to moderate use.
Having said that, it’s clear that Boss knows the office furniture market because they took the time to build breathable mesh side pockets on the seat and seatback.
It doesn’t completely solve the upholstery’s breathability issues, but it does help, making this model a step above what you generally find in the budget furniture market. Kudos to Boss for the little touches that help set their chair apart in a crowded market!
Chair Specifications
Now, let’s have a closer look at those stats and see exactly what we’re dealing with:
The first thing that jumps out is the seat height adjustment range. 18” to 22” is the standard big and tall range, but the chair only supports a maximum of 250 pounds of user weight.
So, it’s fine for taller people with light to medium builds, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is a true big and tall model. It isn’t, and if you exceed the recommended weight limit, you’ll crack the nylon base in short order.
Comfortable Padding
The Boss Office Products Double Plush Mid Back Executive Office Chair utilizes conventional block foam for padding, and there’s enough to make the chair comfortable for sitting in it for up to six hours (again, light to moderate daily use).
Go much beyond that, though. You’ll start to get increasingly uncomfortable, both because there’s not a tremendous amount of padding and because the upholstery’s lack of breathability will begin to get the better of you. You could use it for long periods in a pinch, but it’s certainly not optimized for that.
Ergonomic Features
Comfort isn’t all about padding, though. Two well-implemented ergonomic features enhance the block foam: excellent lumbar support and a waterfall-edge style seat that helps improve circulation in the lower extremities.
Typically, waterfall-edge style seats are found on chairs designed for 8+ hours daily, so they’re not an optimal fit for this design. However, they help support the idea that if you needed to use this model for a full, uninterrupted workday in the chair, you could make it work.
Unfortunately, the lumbar support is not adjustable, but since Boss is practically giving this chair away, that didn’t surprise us, and we certainly didn’t count it against them.
Adjustability
Where adjustability is concerned, this chair sticks strictly to the basics. You get the standard 360-degree swivel, tilt, and lock with a 120-degree maximum recline angle and a height adjustment lever. That’s it.
You must bump up the price bracket if you’re looking for a chair with many adjustable features.
A final note in this section: Although the armrests are reasonably well padded, they’re not adjustable or ergonomically sculpted. Again, at this price point, we weren’t expecting them to be. We’re not knocking the chair for that; we’re just making the observation.
Assembly is Required
The Boss Double Plush Mid Back Executive chair does not come assembled, which puts it in good company with most office chairs.
Boss provides better instructions than most competitors. Although the company uses low-end materials in its products, the production quality is higher than expected for a budget-priced chair, so you shouldn’t have any particular trouble with the assembly process.
One thing to note is that the chair arms attach to both the seat and the seatback, so when you connect them, you’ll probably wind up grunting, swearing, and wishing you had an extra pair of hands.
Expect the assembly to take about half an hour from start to finish. If you have an assistant handy, you can cut that to about twenty minutes, and oddly enough, you can pay extra for an expert assembly option.
Despite the possibility of grunting and swearing if you’re putting the chair together by yourself, we can’t say we recommend paying extra for expert assembly.
The fee for that service is nearly half the price of the chair! It is better to beg a friend than spend that money on our book.
Pros & Cons of the Boss Double Plush Mid Back Executive Chair
As we said at the start, this isn’t a stellar, award-winning chair. It is a pretty decent chair, though, offering solid value for the money. Here are the things you’ll like best about the Boss chair:
Here are the biggest weaknesses of the design:
Overall, we think the positives far outweigh the negatives, and as long as you don’t try to use this chair in ways it wasn’t optimized for, it won’t disappoint.
Boss Double Plush Mid-Back Chair Review Conclusion
The Boss Double Plush Mid-Back Chair is a delightfully low-priced, basic office chair. If you weigh 250 pounds or less, are looking for a chair for light to moderate daily use, and are on a tight budget, this is a great option. It won’t last more than a couple of years, but given its price, it’s easy enough to dispose of it once it shows its age and replace it. On that basis, we provisionally recommend it.
Recommended Reading
Office Star Work Smart FL660 Faux Leather Manager’s Chair Review
Our analysis focuses on the Office Star Work Smart FL660, a well-made office chair for budget-conscious people.
Officient Compact Ergonomic Fabric Chair Review
We looked into the versatile Officient Compact Ergonomic Fabric Chair and found what this little chair has to offer.
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
- Boss Double Plush Mid-Back Chair User Manual.
- Boss Office Products, Official Brand Website.
- Why Are Office Chairs So Expensive?, Medium.
- Pros & Cons: Real and Faux Leather Furniture, World of Interiors.
- Ergonomics 101: What This Latest Office Trend is All About, Xenium.