Cooler Master Caliber R3 Gaming Chair Review

Performance

Building this chair was pretty simple, it’s not an overly unique design when it comes to hardware, using four bolts for the seat back, and four bolts for the back rest that take about five minutes each to assemble. The wheels and gas lift all click together in just a few minutes with no tools. Then you simply lift the seat/backrest and drop it onto the gas lift, and you’re good to go.

The end result does look great, and I love the two-tone effect they’ve gone for on this black version. However, there’s a nice-looking purple version too, which you can see in this stock photo from Cooler Master. The chairs are largely identical, but the PU leather sides and chair back are a different colour, rather than the whole chair, which I like.

The backrest is nice and large, so even for taller people, you can still get excellent shoulder and back support, and the headrest remains usable. Even more so with that adjustable head cushion, which is much larger than the usual little neck cushions you see on many gaming chairs, and it’s just much more comfortable and supporting as a result.

The lumbar support cushion is also rather large, much larger than the little one you get with many chairs from noblechair, Vertagear and countless others. It’s also matched to the chair design, with the three stripes design, thick memory foam interior, and PU leather and breathable material. However, on a hot day, breathable or not, I can see this making my lower back rather warm.

The chair is a breathable material though, so compared to say, a full PU leather or harder coating chair, it’s not going to be too bad in hot weather, and you won’t stick to it as savagely as you would a full leather chair, that’s for sure.

The seat is nice and wide, so I can comfortably sit on it with my legs crossed. The side bolsters are wide and low enough to largely be aesthetic rather than in my way, which I appreciate. Plus, I’m a relatively average build guy, but if I were to put on more weight, I think this chair would still accommodate me rather well.

The armrests are only 2D adjustable, which is a shame, but you can move them up and down or swivel them in and out. Being able to move them forwards and backwards, as well as wider or narrower like you can with 4D armrests would have been nice. However, they’re very comfortable, and you can set their width manually when you install them using the bolts on the bottom of the seat.

The backrest is excellent though and provides a good range of adjustment. You can have it jacked a bit forward, which makes the chair more supportive for smaller people and young gamers or you can tilt it back a full 180-degree, which is quite rare, many chairs stop rather short of laying full flat. It feels weird as hell leaning back that far like the chair is going to tip. However, I never had any such issue, it’s surprisingly stable if you want to kick back and take a nap.

There’s a good range of height adjustment too, I find some chairs don’t go quite low enough to lay my feet flat on the floor or even high enough to take them fully off the floor, but that isn’t the case here. Those with very long or short legs should feel nicely accommodated.

The R3 features a reinforced steel frame construction too, it feels heavy and robust, and like it’s going to last. For some chairs, you can tell they’re a cheap combination of MDF and foam, but this feels much more robust. Short of cutting it to pieces to show you, you’ll just have to take a peek at this stock image from Cooler Master.