For the last few weeks we’ve been enjoying a new piece of furniture around the GEV offices. Courtesy of our friends at Hayneedle.com and Bratskeir and Co., we’ve been spending our time gaming in the new Tron Video Game Rocker. As this isn’t typically in the realm of products we cover, we were a little unsure as to how to properly provide an accurate assessment of the product. That being said, we decided to break it down into a few key categories which we felt appropriate. Those were:
- Comfort
- Functionality
- Ease of Assembly
- Cost
- General Appeal
Obviously when buying a piece of furniture comfort is just as important as visual appeal. With the TRON rocker, much of the comfort depends on the size of the person using the chair. I, myself, can sit in the chair somewhat comfortably for about an hour. After that, my back and legs start to hurt a bit because the support just isn’t there. With that being said, I’m 6’3″ and typically sit with a slouch. To fit in the rocker comfortable I’d have to sit slouched so much that I was on the edge of the seat all of the time. However, if my wife who is 5’4″ sits on the chair, she can do so comfortably for extended periods of time. So it all depends on the user as to how comfortable the char will be.
Functionally, the chair serves it’s purpose. With two built in speakers supporting 2.0 surround sound, the chair aims to make the game more immersive for players. The speakers sound okay, but unless playing alone in a quiet area the volume has to turned up to the highest levels and the speakers aren’t extremely clear so most of the audio is garbled. Sports games without story heavy content seemed to work best, as did FPS’s like Black Ops. It should also be noted that the speakers are power by 6 AA batteries, so unless owners have a supply of rechargeable batteries, the speakers may only get a lot of use at the expense of owner’s wallets. It was nice however to be able to hook up an iPod or Zune to the chair or even our laptops to stream sound that way rather than weak headphones or built in speakers. Some of the specs of the chair are listed below:
- Compatible with all video game systems
- Licensed glow-in-the-dark TRON graphics
- 2.0 surround sound audio through built-in speakers
- Battery-powered with hidden pack for a sleek look
- Dimensions: 32L x 19W x 33H inches
In putting together the chair, our experience was one of relative ease, but we should preface that by saying we typically excel with these things. The directions weren’t extremely clear, and the one problem area in particular we found was attaching the headrest. We found that the predrilled holes for the screws were poorly aligned and we had to use a liberal amount of elbow grease to attach them. If someone is assembling this and they aren’t generally considered to be strong, some difficulty may be had. The whole process was straight forward enough though and only took us about 30 minutes.
Normally priced at $239.99, it would appear as though at the time of this review, the chair can be had for 50% off at $119.98. At that price, we’d have a hard time not recommending this for players looking for a product of this type. We’d be hesitant to recommend it to anyone who isn’t currently in the market for a dedicated game-rocker, but the functionality and value is definitely there for those already interested. One of the things we’d have liked to have seen is interchangeable covers for the product. Now that TRON Legacy has for the most part come and gone, the visual appeal is limited. For the crafty, a nice cover can be made relatively easily but for a $120 chair it may not be worth the time.
Overall Rating: 7 out 10.
Those interested can find and purchase the chair here.
Picture of the chair are below:
**Special thanks to our friends at Bratskeir and Company for providing the products for this review**
