Sihoo M56C Ergonomic Office Chair Review
There are two things you can't avoid in this industry of ours: a mild gaming addiction and chronically bad posture. This is a dangerous combination when you spend all day at your desk and your free time mode involves switching tabs or opening a game while sitting in the same place.
Despite all that, I'm typically not picky about chairs. A good chair does not make your rear end and back sore after two hours of work; everything else is profit , right? My trusty IKEA Flintan with the fixed armrests has served me well for over three years, and replacing it never came to mind.
I was curious to see what the noise was all about when Sihoo reached out asking if I wanted to try the M56C office chair. This is the company's working man's model. It's touted as a plain, affordable, and reliable chair for people who aren't too bothered about the 'gaming chair' tag (with the corresponding price increase).
On the American Sihoo page , the M56C retails for $219.99 at full price, though at the time of writing it had an unbelievable discount... of $10. Still, that's worth about two deeply discounted games . Shockingly, the price in the European store shoots up to €379.99, or €259.99 on sale.
My current setup consists of a desk ordered from a supermarket, a 21.5-inch ASUS monitor, an HP keyboard, a HyperX SoloCast that I regret buying, plus no-name mouse and headphones. The computer itself, albeit a decent spec for 2025, sits inside a slightly rusted case bought in 2017. It's all black, boring, but functional, so I figured the M56C would fit right in.
For full disclosure, Sihoo did not pay for this review. All I got was this chair, which, as I found out over a week, is actually quite nice.
What's In The Box?
Although this chair was sent out as part of a review package, for the sake of fairness, it was sent using the standard delivery options. The turnaround from creating the order to receiving the chair was 6 days.
DPD carried it from Sihoo's Germany warehouse down to Portugal, which is on the longer side of European routes. Sihoo advertises similar delivery times for other regional storefronts, and our American review of the Sihoo C300 Pro also had a fairly quick delivery through FedEx.
The Sihoo M56C came in a nondescript medium-sized cardboard box, but the weight took me by surprise. At 37.15 lbs (or 16.85 kg if you use sensible units of measuring), it's in that awkward spot where you can easily carry it, while also complaining about it.
This wouldn't be an issue, except the box does not have any grip points, and propping it up against your chest is suboptimal since it blocks you from seeing where you're going . The solution was to simply admit defeat and push it across the floor while my dog stared at me judgingly.
Upon opening, I found the components were pleasantly arranged in the box. Everything is stacked vertically, allowing you to slide things out without much trouble. The box with the nuts and bolts looked like it was crammed in as an afterthought, but it didn't affect its contents or the surrounding items.
Of Nuts And Bolts
I generally enjoy putting new furniture together, until the last 15 minutes when I get tired and start cursing at it. The Sihoo M56C is no exception to this tried-and-tested workflow.
The standard kit comes with two tools and a cute little pair of white gloves . I typically don't bother with that when working on furniture or machinery (thank my boyfriend for enough scaremongering from machining workshops), but I put on the drip this one time.
The gloves fit comfortably, but I regularly found them at odds with one of the tools included—an Allen key with a Phillips head on the other end. While most such tools, including the other smaller Allen key provided, follow a typical L-shape with one shorter end to fit into fighter spaces, this one had equal sides.
This led to two problems: it made certain components more cumbersome to put together, and the Phillips head constantly snagged on the gloves when using the Allen. Minor? Yes. Incredibly frustrating over an hour? Absolutely.
A more generalized gripe I have with office chairs as a species is the fitting of the castoring wheels. Call it a skill issue all you want, but not a single one I've owned in the last decade and change has had the wheels fit in comfortably the first time.
The Sihoo M56C follows that trend, with some wheels requiring percurssive maintenance to slot in, and one particularly rebellious wheel refusing to slot in until I changed it to another position. Go figure.
Besides that, the rest of the assembly process was pretty straightforward—put the thing on the thing, use the Allen or the Phillips to secure it, and off you go. A single screw in the connecting point between the lumbar support and the backrest gave me some trouble, but nothing too remarkable.
After about an hour, the Sihoo M56C was ready for testing, so I started this hard journey by sitting on it and getting back to work.
What It Can and Cannot Do
It takes one good look at the Sihoo M56C to realize this is a proper office chair. None of that stylish gaming stuff; that's reserved for our cool writers. This chair is the moderately boring editor's best friend.
The entire backside of the M56C is made of a breathable elastic mesh. This was immediately put through a brutal stress test, as temperatures here hit a disgustingly humid 37ºC (98.6ºF) on the very first day of usage.
Despite the sun's best efforts to put me out of my misery, the chair held out nicely , allowing me to get through the work day without feeling particularly muggy.
Rather than having a single backrest, the M56C uses three smaller bits: a lumbar support, an upper backrest, and a headrest.
The lower part of this totem sits on a flexible horseshoe-shaped mount that makes it automatically adjust to your back. This is easily my favorite thing about it, as it's made longer days trivial rather than endurance tests. Perfect when you need to cover the State of Play , Summer Game Fest , and the Xbox Games Showcase in the same week, for example.
The central backrest is, well, a backrest. It gets the job done without much fuss, and is pleasantly wide so you don't feel the structural bits digging into your back if you lean to either side.
I was pleasantly surprised by the headrest, which can be adjusted in both length and tilt. The elastic mesh is comfortable against skin, which is a biggie when you have as much hair on your head as Rude from Final Fantasy VII .
The headrest tilt angle and height are easy to adjust but require deliberate force, so I never had to worry about accidentally sending it.
As far as the cushion goes, it's nice, but nothing revolutionary. I did not feel any discomfort during long gaming or writing sessions, so that's a plus. It's also reasonably wide, meaning I could cross my legs in a variety of different, awful postures without being punished for my hubris.
The height adjustment is decent, if a little jumpy for my liking, but that's offset by the great reclining setup. When unlocked, the backrest needs a deliberate amount of force to recline. I leave it like that most of the time since it's easy to change it based on my whims.
When the reclining mechanism locks, you have a little bit of play, which is nice, but sometimes makes me wish for a full lock. On the other hand, you can lock the Sihoo at the fully reclined position, which is about the perfect position for kicking your feet on the table, or locking in for working a HOTAS setup.
On that note, while this is marketed as an office chair, I found the armrests on the Sihoo M56C are perfect for simulators . I no longer have my Thrustmaster wheel, so I didn't get to test that, but it was a treat to use with my Virpil WarBRD base and flight stick combo and Thrustmaster TWCS throttle.
The top of the armrests are made of soft rubber, so they don't give that hard plastic-on-one pain after a few hours. Their height is adjustable separately for each side, which was something I sorely missed when playing flight sims.
The WarBRD stick is nearly flawless as far as precision goes, but it sits rather tall compared to most sticks. With my previous setup, this meant choosing between an awkward grip angle or lifting the whole chair to save my wrist at the expense of awkward rudder pedal actuation. The M56C armrests allow me to get a nice position relative to the stick, throttle, and monitor.
Final Thoughts
After a week of revealing my deepest, darkest posture secrets to the Sihoo M56C ergonomic office chair, we've become close friends.
The whole 'office chair' thing is a front to tell your boss or significant other that this purchase is absolutely not to fulfill your deepest, darkest gaming desires . No, babe, you don't understand, the armrests are important for my posture at work and have nothing to do with my Microsoft Flight Simulator bush flying!
I tested the Sihoo M56C for a full intensive week, which is hardly enough to speak on durability issues, but the first impressions on build quality have been positive. One thing I'm a little bummed about is that you cannot detach the mesh from the back section to clean, something I loved about the IKEA Flintan, and which will inevitably become a pain in the rear in the long run.
The Sihoo M56C packs in high-end comfort in a fairly affordable package, at least for the quality you get out of it. Is it worth it? Well, geography and timing play a major role here.
If you are in the United States or are able to secure it during a discounted period in other storefronts, then absolutely. You'll be hard-pressed to find a chair this good in the $200-$250 range.
At the same time, European customers who don't have such luck will find it hard to justify dropping upwards of $400 for the M56C, simply because for that money, you can actually find decent alternatives in any local store.
Closing Comments: Score 8.5/10
The Sihoo M56C ergonomic office chair strikes a great balance between pricing and features, provided you actually have access to the best prices on offer. The cushion is comfortable, the lumbar support is a game-changer, and the adjustable armrests and reclining lock make it a fantastic alternative to dedicated, overpriced racing and flight seats. There are some practical concerns, like the weight making it a pain in the rear if you're planning to move or carry it anywhere, and the assembly does not lend itself to easy cleaning. That said, these are things outside the scope of daily use, and I won't be losing too much sleep over it. The M56C has allowed my trusty old IKEA Flintant to retire, and I'd recommend it for anyone seeking an affordable chair for long days at the desk.
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