An office chair's price often tracks the number and quality of its adjustments more than its materials — and a chair with the right adjustments set correctly matters more than any single premium feature.
The four adjustments worth checking
Seat height should let your feet rest flat on the floor (or a footrest) with your knees at roughly a right angle, and your forearms level with the desk surface when typing. This is the single most important adjustment to get right, and the one most people never touch after unboxing.
Lumbar support should sit in the natural inward curve of your lower back, not below it. Fixed lumbar support only helps if that curve happens to land in the right spot for your height; adjustable lumbar support (height and sometimes depth) is worth prioritizing if you're outside an average height range.
Armrest height should let your shoulders relax down, not hunch up or droop — armrests set too high push the shoulders up over time, and too low removes their benefit entirely. Width and pivot adjustment matter too if you work close to a desk or switch between typing and other tasks often.
Recline and tilt tension control how much resistance the chair gives when you lean back, and whether it locks at a chosen angle or allows a bit of ongoing movement (dynamic tilt), which many ergonomists consider healthier for long sitting sessions than staying rigidly upright all day.
Two minutes in a showroom won't tell you much
The way most office furniture stores are set up — sit down, lean back once, stand up — tests almost none of what actually matters about a chair, which is how your body feels after hours of real use with the adjustments properly set for you, not sampled for thirty seconds as delivered off the floor. A generous return policy is a much more meaningful signal of confidence than a showroom impression, and it's worth prioritizing a chair you can actually live with for a week or two over one that felt fine standing in a store.
The one thing people forget
Actually take the time to set every adjustment properly when the chair arrives, rather than sitting down and leaving everything at the factory default. A well-designed chair set up carelessly can feel worse than a simpler chair set up correctly — the adjustments only help if someone actually uses them.