In a Nutshell:
The GM Seating Enklave is a rock-solid design offered by a not terribly well-known but highly respected company in the industry. It is recommended for users weighing up to 300 pounds looking for a highly adjustable chair optimized for light to moderate daily use.
Value for the Money
Comfort
Brand Reliability*
Aesthetic Flexibility**
Overall Rating
4.1/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Users weighing up to 300 pounds who are looking for a highly adjustable chair optimized for light to moderate daily use.
GM Seating isn’t one of the industry’s titans, but they are an incredibly well-respected company, and they produce consistently good chairs that verge on being great.
We didn’t absolutely fall in love with this model, but we do like it very much. And by the time you reach the end of this review, we think you’ll agree—this chair belongs on your shortlist of options to consider. It is highly adjustable, surprisingly comfortable, and every single feature is expertly implemented.
An Overview Of The GM Seating Enklave Leather Executive High Swivel Chair
This is a strong segment of our GM Seating Enklave review, but then, given how experienced and well-respected the company is, that’s exactly what we would expect.
The first thing to mention here is that the Enklave comes in a number of different varieties and configurations. You can order yours either with or without a headrest or in your choice of mesh or top-grain leather upholstery.
If you opt for a mesh chair, you can order yours in either grey or black.
We’re not a huge fan of mesh chairs, but we grudgingly admit that the mesh variants of the Enklave look pretty good, and we’re especially fond of the look of the grey one. Even though the chair is designed along classic/conventional lines, in grey mesh, it is striking indeed.
Naturally, the leather variant looks incredible, but we’ve got a few issues with that upholstery choice, which we’ll have more to say about later. For now, let’s just say that we love that there’s an option for leather upholstery, and it looks amazing.
Looks, however, will only get you so far. If we want to really see what makes this model tick, we need to look at raw numbers, and with that in mind, here’s a quick overview:
These numbers are mostly good, but there are a couple that we have some issues with.
First and foremost, we like that the chair has some heft to it. At sixty pounds, it’s not the heaviest office chair you’ll find, but it’s certainly no lightweight either. That gives it a feeling of solidity without being so heavy that you’d struggle to move it when you need to.
The overall dimensions are quite good, but we’re less thrilled with the seat depth. Honestly, you’ve got to be pretty tiny to use the chair on the setting with the narrowest seat.
Fortunately, the seat depth is adjustable, and that fact makes it much more accommodating to the broader market. We’d still love to see it start at around 17.5” or 18” deep and expand from there, but in that case, the company would also need to ruggedize the frame so the chair could handle more user weight.
Speaking of user weight, the Enklave supports 300 pounds of user weight. While no formal standard has been established, that’s the informal standard that most companies gravitate to, which makes this model about average in that dimension.
The seat height range is a bit of a curiosity. Starting at nearly 19” and extending to 22”, the entire height adjustment range is inside “big and tall” territory, but this isn’t a big and tall chair.
What that tells us then is that this model was designed for people with light to medium builds who have long-ish legs. There are quite a lot of people who fall into that category, so this isn’t quite a niche product, but it seems clear that this chair was designed to cater to a fairly specific group of people. That’s not a bad thing, just something to be aware of.
The GM Seating Enklave Xl Mesh Executive Chair Is Surprisingly Comfortable and Adjustable
This is another strong component of our GM Seating Enklave review, but as you’ll see, it is perhaps not quite as strong as we like it to be.
In terms of adjustability, this chair has all the basics covered and covered well. It offers superb lumbar support that is adjusted, so if it doesn’t hit exactly where you need it to in its default position, that can easily be tweaked.
Similarly, the seat height can be adjusted to taste, as can the seat depth, and if you’ve ordered yours with the headrest, you can adjust its height and angle.
In addition to that, the armrests are flat-out amazing, being adjustable in four dimensions. You can adjust them for height and width, plus you can slide them back and forth and adjust their angle either inward or outward, depending on how you sit in the chair.
That’s superb and taken together, there are enough adjustment options available that you can ensure the chair fits you like a glove, and that’s before we talk about the tilt limiter and tilt tension!
Unfortunately, these options bring one potential weakness to the fore. This is what we’d call a fairly “fiddly” chair.
Yes, you can make it fit you like a glove, but in order to do that, you’ve got to put in the time.
Your initial seating experience in the chair is almost certainly not going to be optimal, and it may take a week or more of testing and experimentation in order to get it just right.
It’s time well spent, though, and if you’re going to get one of these, we absolutely recommend spending a few days or even a week or more—whatever it takes—to optimize the chair’s settings.
Now let’s talk about comfort.
Mesh chairs are surprisingly comfortable, even though they lack padding.
The secret to their success lies in the fact that they’re incredibly breathable. That goes a long way where comfort is concerned, but there are limits. The more time you spend in the chair, the more you’ll start to miss the lack of padding.
It’s fine if you don’t spend more than 4-6 hours in the chair, but more than that, and you’ll really start missing the padding.
The leather variant has the exact opposite problem. It looks fabulous and is delightfully comfortable, with enough padding to provide an amazing seating experience, but leather isn’t breathable, so the more time you spend in the chair, the hotter you’ll get. You’ll get uncomfortably hot at a certain point (again, more than 4-6 hours or so).
The Enklave Does Not Come Assembled
Unfortunately, as is the case with most of the office chairs on the market today, if you decide you want one of these, it will arrive in a large box and in several pieces. Before you can take a seat, you’ll have to unbox it, sort the pieces, and put the thing together.
The good news is that GM Seating’s production values are amazing, so all of the pieces fit together exactly as you’d expect, and the assembly instructions are clear and easy to follow.
From start to finish, it should take no more than twenty minutes to get the chair put together, and you can shave some time off of that if you’ve got an extra pair of hands on the day the chair arrives.
Variants of GM Seating Enklave XL
Pros And Cons of GM Seating Enklave
Aside from the limitation we mentioned where comfort is concerned, there’s really nothing wrong with this chair. It’s got a good set of features, and all of them are exceptionally well-implemented.
From a technical standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with the chair, though we wish the company offered a fabric-clad variant.
Just as the Enklave has no noteworthy flaws, it also doesn’t have any truly fantastic features that leap out at you. It’s just a very good, versatile, all-purpose office chair.
GM Seating Enklave Review Conclusion
We really like the Enklave, but we don’t love it. It’s a solid, well-implemented design.
There’s nothing about the chair that screams, “buy me over some other model!” and it is optimized for light to moderate daily use (4-6 hours a day). If you need a chair for longer periods than that, this one will probably underwhelm you, but if that usage level seems fine, we think you’ll be impressed.
On that basis, we recommend it.
Other Options To Consider
Recommended For: Users weighing up to 300 pounds who need a chair designed for heavy daily use.
This is probably the best chair you’ve ever heard of. Not many people are familiar with the SIDIZ brand, but don’t let that fool you, the company is an absolute behemoth in the world of office furniture. It’s just that most of their customers are other companies, though they do have a web portal that caters to consumers.
The T50 is a great chair and offers a wide range of features that you may like better than the model we just reviewed. It definitely belongs on your shortlist of options to consider.
Recommended For: Anyone who spends several hours a day in their chair. This thing is virtually indestructible.
This chair isn’t as expensive as the model we just talked about but is also well worth considering. Flash Furniture isn’t a huge company, but they make consistently great furniture.
This model’s big draw is that it can support a lot of user weight (up to 400 pounds) and boasts a solid steel frame. It can stand up to just about anything, so if you’re looking for a chair that’s optimized for the rigors of heavy daily use, this one is an awesome choice.