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Vertagear PL4500 Review: Comfortable Seating With Quirky Extras

As someone who has been regularly gaming and working at desks for longer than I care to admit, I’ve sat on a lot of different chairs over the years. From cheap office chairs to branded gaming chairs, I’ve owned my fair share. So, when I was asked to try the Vertagear Racing Series P-Line PL4500 I was expecting more of the same. While the chair itself may seem like a pretty standard affair, the unique RGB LED upgrade kit that Vertagear sent with it proves that if there’s a product aimed at gamers, someone has made a version with rainbow lights.

Vertagear’s PL4500 arrives packed like any other chair of this type I’ve seen, requiring some limited assembly. The wheels and lift clip together easily and the instructions contain the obligatory warning to not touch a specific lever until the chair is assembled. The main difference is that the ugly metal brackets fastening the seat to the backrest actually fit inside the chair, which means the back has four large screwheads visible that blend reasonably well into the black leather. As someone who hates the big clunky plastic covers that usually hide ugly metal bars, I appreciated this touch. The only downside was that it did make assembly a little fiddly on one side as it can be difficult to line up both sides perfectly when you can’t see the brackets, but it’s still a simple one-person job. The flashes of color are limited to the edges of the chair and some subtle stripes along the seat and base, but not everyone wants vibrant, in-your-face color. It feels stylish but subtle, an aesthetic I appreciate.

The PL4500 is hands down the most comfortable chair I’ve owned. This is not a leather chair – a plus for me regardless – yet it retains many of its benefits. A large part of the comfort is down to what Vertagear calls “HygennX”; a technology which “uses patented coffee ground nanotechnology in breathable cloth to deliver natural odor control with quick-drying functionality and silver-coated embroidery to neutralize bacteria growth while prolonging the life of your chair and accessories.”

It may sound like marketing nonsense but in practice it means the seat and backrest feel much softer and nicer than leather, yet retain the easy to clean properties. I’ve been sitting on this chair for weeks now, yet it still has that “new chair” smell. The rest of the chair is made from PUC, which is a PVC and faux-leather hybrid. This combination is more practical than it sounds and has already proven itself to be easy to clean, which is absolutely necessary when your kids want to “test” the chair as well.

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The lumbar support and neck support pillows feel like memory foam, as do the chair seat and back. This makes the chair comfortable both with and without the separate supports and makes it easy for those of different heights to find a comfortable position. It’s also very easy to adjust the backrest position and even tilt the chair. There are several lockable positions for each as well as height options. You can even move the armrests forward or backward as well as up or down, making it easy to find a setup that suits your needs.

Everything I mentioned so far about subtlety needs to be put aside as we move on to the RGB upgrade kit. This add-on is purchased separately and takes the seemingly wasted cut out sections you always see at shoulder height in gaming chairs and fills them with RGB lights, configurable wirelessly via an app designed by NZXT that you install on your PC.

Setting up the kit was much easier than I expected. A couple of screws and the plastic inserts in the headrest are removed. The new inserts are then placed inside, add some perspex panels, slot in the batteries, and screw the whole thing back together. They even provide the screwdriver. Once replaced, the new version looks similar to the old one except it has a logo on the perspex panels and a white stripe around the edge that contains the lights.

The logo is Vertagear’s as standard, but you can have your own logo engraved instead. Vertagear sent us some inserts with the TheGamer and our logo inscribed on them and I’ll admit it’s kind of neat to have that personalization. However, just a logo by itself, rather than writing, does appear better once the chair is lit up, so bear that in mind.

The chair comes with a magnetic charger and it’s very easy to just click on the back of the chair for charging. The cable is also about 2m long so you don’t need a spare outlet right at your feet. Once charged you then need to insert the USB dongle into your PC. This connects the chair in the same way you would connect a wireless keyboard or controller, simply by pressing buttons on both the dongle and chair to sync the two together. Since being connected, the chair has only come unsynced once and that was when I deliberately left the batteries flat for a couple of days to see if that would happen.

The software offers you 13 different options for the lighting including static, pulsating, flashing, and alternating options for almost any color you can imagine, including rainbow options. In short, if your mouse does it, your chair can probably do it. In fact, if you have NZXT peripherals it appears that you can configure them all through this same software.

The chair lighting was clearly designed with streamers in mind and this comes out in the software which even offers a ‘cam overlay’ option that allows you to display your PC specs as an overlay while streaming. There is also a setting to sync the chair to your audio so it can flash in time to your music or other sounds. This mostly works well but the gaming integration appears to have been abandoned. When we reached out asking how to get this to work with anything other than CS:GO, Vertagear told us “NZXT CAM stopped developing in-game sync therefore it wouldn’t work with the latest CAM version.” This is a huge shame since being able to have lighting that reacted to in-game events like health loss was no doubt a huge pull for streamers looking for something a little different.

In terms of the lighting, it’s a gimmick that most people are likely to pass on. Having a light-up chair sounds cool but in reality, you can’t even see it yourself. Because the lights are behind your head all you get is an odd flash if you turn around for some reason. The main aim is clearly for streamers, who will be displaying the lights to their audience. If you want fancy RGB lighting behind you while still being able to use green screen so only you and your chair are visible then this may be the solution. Just don’t expect the gaming integration the website still promises.

For anyone not showing off their chair to others in the name of entertainment on a regular basis, the lighting is basically pointless. It may have caused some ‘oohs’ when I brought disco lights to our weekly team meeting, but the novelty wears off quickly. The other thing to be aware of is your height, since the lights do fit into the chair recess. If you’re tall enough that your shoulders obscure the panels they will also obscure the lights which cover the underneath and outer edges of the perspex insert, as well as the perspex itself. The lights can also be difficult to see if you don’t have a plain background behind the perspex.

In short, while the chair itself is incredibly versatile, comfortable, and practical, the lights are pretty much the opposite, being restrictive, flashy and with limited use for the average gamer.

A product sample was provided to TheGamer for this review. The Vertagear Racing Series P-Line PL4500 is available now from Vertagear’s website. The RGB upgrade kit and customized inserts are both sold separately.

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