SIHOO M57 Review: The $190 Mesh Office Chair Our Readers Actually Buy

The M57 wins on adjustment count, and adjustment count is what separates a chair you tolerate from a chair you forget about. Under $200 the typical mesh chair gives you seat height, a tilt lock, and maybe arms that go up and down. The M57 at $189.96 at the time of writing adds arms that also slide forward and back and pivot inward, a lumbar pad you can raise or lower to your own curve, and a headrest that moves in both height and angle. Those are the adjustments that let a 5 ft 5 in illustrator and a 6 ft 2 in developer both get the same chair to fit.

The back is the standard SIHOO mesh: taut, breathable, and shaped with a gentle lumbar curve before you even touch the pad. The pad itself slides in a track, so you can center it on your lower back. What it will not do is flex with you. Steelcase's LiveBack and the FlexiSpot ErgoX's dynamic lumbar follow your spine as you move; the M57's pad stays where you left it. For most people that is fine. For anyone who shifts posture constantly, it is the first thing you will notice.

Capacity is where the M57 punches above its class. The listing says 330 lb, versus the 250 to 275 lb rating on most sub-$200 mesh chairs. We cannot independently load-test it, so treat that as the manufacturer's number, but it is consistent with the thicker base and the heavier gas lift compared with the M18. If you sit above 300 lb and want more margin, our big and tall office chairs guide covers frames rated to 400 lb.

Assembly is about 20 to 30 minutes with the included hex key: casters into the base, lift into the base, seat onto the lift, back onto the seat with four bolts, arms and headrest last. One tip: leave the back bolts loose until all four are started, then tighten in a cross pattern, or the back can sit slightly off-center.

The ErgoX is what you get when you take the M57's formula and fix its one real weakness. The dynamic lumbar is the headline: rather than a pad on a track, the lower back section flexes with you, so it supports you leaning forward to draw and leaning back to think without re-adjusting. Add the deeper recline and the footrest and it becomes a chair for long, varied sessions rather than a chair for upright work.

We wrote the full comparison in SIHOO M57 vs FlexiSpot ErgoX, and the ErgoX has its own single-product review. The short version: most people should save the $110; people who recline should spend it.

If you are deciding between these two, you are really deciding whether $57 buys you arm depth. Everything else is close: mesh back, headrest, tilt lock, seat height. The M18's arms move up and down and can be set wider or narrower, but they do not slide forward or pivot, so your forearm lands wherever the arm happens to be. For a few hours a day that is a non-issue. For eight hours of typing or drawing, it is the difference between a chair that supports you and a chair you lean away from.

Our honest take: the M18 is the better buy only when the M57 is out of budget. The full head-to-head is in the M18 vs M57 section below.

The Series 1 is the answer to a different question: what if I just buy the good one? Its recline responds to your body weight, so there is no tension knob to fiddle with, and the back flexes as a unit rather than relying on a lumbar pad. The 400 lb rating and the Steelcase warranty are what a $190 chair cannot offer at any configuration.

We compare it against its bigger sibling in Series 1 vs Series 2, and against the full field in our best office chairs guide. If the Steelcase price is in reach, it is the chair we would buy with our own money.