Space Seating AirGrid Manager’s Chair by Office Star Review 2025

Are you in the market for a new office chair? Have you been frustrated in your search to this point? 

If you answered yes to either of those questions, then the Space Seating AirGrid Manager’s Chair may be what you’re looking for, but we’ll emphasize the word “may.”

As you can see, just by glancing at the overall rating of this chair, it is by no means perfect. It’s slightly above average, but it’s not hard to find a better chair overall. 

That said, every person is different. Every person’s needs and priorities differ, and you may be more than willing to overlook this model’s shortcomings. If so, you’ll be immensely satisfied with this model. If not, it’s likely to underwhelm, if not outright disappoint. You may find a better match in other Office Star products.

Not to worry. We’ll cut through the clutter and discuss the model’s various strengths and weaknesses so you can decide if it’s the right chair for you. If that sounds good to you, let’s get right to it!

Key Features of the Space Seating AirGrid Manager’s Chair

When you first see the Space Seating AirGrid Manager’s Chair, you’ll notice that it’s surprisingly attractive for a mesh chair.

So far, the Herman Miller Sayl is the only mesh chair we’ve ever seen that you could call attractive, but we’ll readily admit that the design team did a pretty decent job here. It’s not an eyesore and is relatively unassuming, so it tends to blend in relatively easily with a wide range of home décor schemes.

Given that most people don’t buy office furniture based on looks alone, that’s good enough for us, and we suspect, good enough for a broad swath of the market.

Chair Specifications

Regarding basic stats, here’s what the AirGrid Manager’s Chair looks like:

There are a couple of things worth talking about here. First and foremost, this is a big, beefy chair. If you have a smallish room, this model will probably fill it up and dominate it. That, plus the chair’s weight and height adjustment range, combine to make this a decent chair for big and tall users.

It’s not ideally suited for all big and tall people, but it seems designed to cater to that end of the market. Even better, the base is lightweight steel, so it’s heavy and durable. Combined with mesh, both work well for a chair designed for heavy daily use, and that’s a very good thing.

However, basic stats will only take you so far, so let’s dig deeper in our Space Seating Professional AirGrid review and see what makes this model tick.

Comfortable Mesh Back

The AirGrid scores well on comfort for a few different reasons. First, while the mesh seatback might not be much to look at, it’s incredibly durable and breathable. If you’ve ever spent long periods in a leather chair, you know how important that can be because the leather will make you sweat like crazy!

The mesh backing here avoids that and makes the chair more comfortable.

Adjustable Seatback

Then there’s the fact that the seatback’s position can be adjusted to taste, and the chair has a tilt and lock mechanism with a range of 90 to 120 degrees, which allows you to tweak the way you sit at your desk and maximize your comfort. That’s excellent.

Waterfall Style Seat

Next, there’s the generously padded waterfall-style seat, which is well-implemented and comfortable. Even better, the seat is upholstered in mesh-like, breathable fabric. Again, this makes the chair ideal for heavy daily usage, and the waterfall-style seat is the first of three ergonomic features to discuss.

Adjustable Lumbar Support

The Space Seating Deluxe AirGrid Back chair also offers lumbar support; even better, it’s mildly adjustable! You can slide the lumbar support pad up and down by about two inches in either direction, allowing you to put the added support exactly where you need it.

You won’t find too many chairs that offer adjustable lumbar support, and we like it very much, so again, great job by Space Seating! Unfortunately, this is where the negatives start creeping in. There’s no locking mechanism on the lumbar support. It’s held in place mostly by being snug in the slider and the weight of your back pressing against the chair.

Unfortunately, adjusting the lumbar support while sitting in the chair is almost impossible. Over time, the slider will become less snug, causing the support to fall to the lowest position before you can sit in the chair. It’s one of the more common complaints leveled against the model, and it is a fair one.

It’s also an issue that could easily be avoided. Engineering a simple locking mechanism on the lumbar support wouldn’t add to the chair’s cost, but the company has opted not to do so.

This brings us to the third ergonomic feature the Space Seating AirGrid chair boasts: the headrest.

Ergonomic Headrest

The headrest is moderately comfortable and padded with the same mesh-like fabric you find on the seat, which makes it breathable.

Sadly, although the headrest is height adjustable, the mechanism for doing so is a simple lever action with a weak lock to hold it in the desired position. 

As with the lumbar support, it won’t take long before this mechanism breaks down entirely, which will cause the headrest to fall to its lowest position and stay there unless you engineer some alternate solution to keep it in the desired position. 

Given the price they’re asking for this chair, we consider it unacceptable. Combine that with the fact that the headrest isn’t all that comfortable, and we regard this as a poorly implemented feature. 

Many users have said they removed the headrest entirely once the locking mechanism stopped working. That brings us to the armrests. Like the headrest, these are height adjustable at the touch of a button but suffer from the same problem.  

Armrest

Thankfully, the armrest locking mechanism is a bit sturdier than the one used for the headrest. However, the armrests have to support a lot more weight, which means they’ll tend to break down just as quickly, perhaps even more quickly. This is not good.

To make matters worse, although the armrests are lightly padded, they’re far from comfortable and not ergonomically designed. As with the headrest, many users have reported removing and not using them.

The problem is that you’re being charged for these features, and this isn’t a cheap chair, to begin with; why pay for something poorly implemented so you won’t be able to use it in the long run? Needless to say, all of these things impacted the Space Seating Manager’s chair’s final score.

Does Not Come Assembled

Here, Space Seating shines. Although this is a big chair, it’s easier to put together than you might think. Part of this stems from the fact that the armrests don’t add to the structural integrity of the chair, so you’re not in the position of having to try to balance the seat, the seat back, and one of the arms to get the three pieces put together during the assembly process. 

It’s also true that Space Seating did an excellent job making their chair easier than average to put together, so credit where credit is due!

Pros & Cons of Space Seating Airgrid Managers Chair

So where does all that leave us? As you’ve seen, the AirGrid is very much a mixed bag. Some things the company got right, and we applaud them for it, and some things are…well, ‘disaster’ would be too strong a word, but some elements of this Space Seating 25004 chair are not good. 

Let’s break it down into pros and cons to summarize. Here are the things we think you’ll like best about this chair:

Here are the chair’s biggest weaknesses:

Space Seating Professional AirGrid Review Conclusion

The lack of durability of the locking mechanisms in various places on this model seriously damaged the Space Seating AirGrid Manager’s chair’s value score. That, combined with the low brand reliability, made its final score barely above average, even though this chair is solidly built and has many attractive features.

Sure, it’s possible to engineer your solutions to hold the armrests, headrest, and lumbar support pad in the positions you want them, but you should not have to do that for the price of the chair.

Furthermore, why pay a premium for features you either won’t use at all or will remove once they start breaking down? This is the solution many people who have bought this chair have adopted.

Given all of that, we very cautiously, provisionally recommend this chair, but we do so with this proviso:

• If you like every feature, this chair offers and don’t mind doing DIY work to keep it functioning correctly when the weak locking mechanisms fail; this is a good option for you.
• If you’d rather buy a chair that works and you don’t have to babysit, better and more cost-effective options are available.

Official Manufacturer Support

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

• Office Star Products, Official Brand Website.
• Space Seating AirGrid Manager’s Chair User Manual.
• Office Chair Buying Guide, Industry Buying.
• How to Fix an Office Chair That Leans Back, The Office Oasis.
• 5 Features to Consider When Buying an Office Chair, Office Chairs Unlimited.