I know it's not just me and I'm not trying to act as if I'm a special case, but the biggest problem I see w/ office chairs is they don't support a proper posture while sitting at a computer. For instance, I often find myself slouching or trying to reconfigure my arm-chair height so I can jump from the keyboard to the mouse w/o much effort.
Again not to sound like a special case, but I have extremely long legs (high-waist line, like a woman...) and short torso, I don't know if this physical feature is affecting my posture in normal office chairs, but Aeron seems to effect my posture enough that it makes a huge difference.
My Aeron is nearly ten years old. A new Aeron costs $850 up front from Amazon; that works out to about $7 a month. It beats pain.
Recently my chair broke (the hydraulic unit sort of exploded). Fortunately Aerons have a twelve year warranty, so in about an hour a tech is scheduled to visit my home office and fix it, for free.
If you really cannot stomach spending money for a new Aeron buy a used Aeron. (But you might want to call and make sure that the sweet, sweet warranty will transfer! ;) Then, if you decide later that another chair is better, you can sell the Aeron used and not lose much money in the bargain.
However, the 12-year warranty is only for structural parts. If I recall correctly, the mesh had only a 5-year warranty.
I'm sure a lot of others here looking to buy a chair are thinking of going the same route I am. Be aware that there is one major caveat emptor to buying a secondhand chair: Herman Miller's 12 year warranty only applies to the original purchaser that obtained the product from HM or an authorized reseller. Humanscale, Steelcase, Knoll, HON, and pretty much every other major task chair manufacturer has a similar warranty, and none of them will let you transfer the warranty AFAIK. Experiences with obtaining warranty service for secondhand Aerons and other chairs seems to vary, but please factor in the possibility that you may not be able to obtain service into the long-term cost of buying a used chair. If a trivial-over-12-years cost difference will give you peace of mind, go for it. Research a reseller before you buy anything from them. And so on.
If you weren't aware of this already, well, you can use it now to negotiate a lower price ;)
(Speaking of warranties, Costco sells some Herman Miller chairs as a legitimate authorized reseller. You can get the HM warranty and Costco's legendary return policy together that way, should anything with your chair go horribly wrong.)
The difference I notice is the height, and perhaps the size of the seat back, but there may be other differences as well.
I did learn the secret for figuring out an Aeron's size: Under the edge of the back of the seat, stamped into the plastic, are one or more raised dots, like Braille. The one with three dots is a C. The one with two dots is too small for me, and I've never encountered a single dot.
Some of my coworkers saw an ad on Craigslist for a recording studio that was going out of business. They were selling everything, from mixing boards and microphones to computers and Aeron chairs. They got genuine Aeron chairs for about $250 each. Try looking on Craigslist or in the Pennysaver for going out of business type sales.
Also, search nearby cities/regions. I had to drive an hour or so for mine, but it was worth it.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=585693
Ergohuman is the closest I can find to the Aeron, but I haven't tried one yet. They're also pretty close to Aeron in price, around $600:
http://ergohuman.com/index.html
Realspace Pro 9000 is close too:
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/690690/Realspace-PRO-9...
A Slate article looking for the 'best desk chair':
http://www.slate.com/id/2131646/
Some others worth looking at:
Herman Miller Ecua XR:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/ProductGroup.aspx?Prodid=113004...
Humanscale Liberty:
http://www.thehumansolution.com/liberty.html
Hayworth Zody:
http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/review-haworth-zody-cha...
Realspace BT2:
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/392830/Realspace-BT2-B... (I randomly found this one in Office Depot recently, and liked how it felt so much I bookmarked its page. I'm not Big & Tall, just average, but this chair's posture & lumbar support felt great)
Here's a fake Aeron:
http://www.coolchairz.com/solid-metal-mesh-chair--metallic-t...
Lots more at http://www.ergodepot.com/
Even a TED Talk on sitting:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/niels_diffrient_rethinks_...
The adjustable arm rests are also pretty cool and nearly worth the price of admission by themselves. They adjust up/down, forward/backward, left/right and rotate around the vertical axis.
I've had my Aeron for 4 years now. No new cylinders. So the $800 I spent more than paid for itself. If I had stayed using office chairs, I'd have spent more than $1k on them.
Notes:
1 - Getting run over by a car, and being unable to be as physically active as I used to be didn't help.
It's a lovely chair for working in, very comfortable and with a decent head / neck support.
That or get one of the exercise balls to sit on when you must sit, it forces correct posture.
The design for attaching the seatback to the base is poor - all that is holding it up is two metal plates attached to eachother at (about) a 60 degree angle with 2 screws. There is a "slot" one goes into but it is just plastic. Due to this the screws holding up the back have a tendency to snap in half.
Both of my screws broke after 1 month, causing me to go crashing onto the floor. They had a "recall" and distributed a repair kit with new screws but one new screw has already snapped for me. To really fix this chair they would have to do much more than distribute a new pair of screws. Hopefully they have in newer chairs, but I wouldn't risk $250 on it.
This may have to do with weight and height - I'm 6'4 and 190 lbs, so I would place much more stress on the screws than someone shorter. I still wouldn't risk it though.
I use a Vitra Headline. Most comfortable task chair in the world. I can code on it for days without feeling that my head is getting heavy and I need to sleep. It's so much relaxing fun I regularly have to drag myself away from the monitor at 3am to go to bed. Truly a revolution.
So what kind of chairs do they have? School labs aren't known for having Aerons.
Even cheaper chairs are a significant investment, so I suggest just try sitting on as many as you can, and don't buy one that you couldn't try.
BTW... the price that they list on craigslist is usually an ideal price that they would like to get. You should be able to knock off 50-100 bucks off the price by haggling in person and be willing to walk away from a deal.
It looks like a barstool and feels a bit like a high-tech, firm, adjustable exercise ball. Easily my favorite office chair and vastly better, in my opinion, than Aerons.
I found mine for $100 on Craiglist, so maybe try there.
So what chairs do they have? Probably not Aerons? If those work fine for you, why not buy just that.
Double-check the seat height, though. I'm 5'11" and at the highest setting it's almost too low. I'm not entirely sure if they come in different sizes or if its one-size-fits-all.
http://www.sitonit.net/home/product-overview.asp?product=foc...
They are not as good as aerons but they are significantly cheaper, around $250.
Don't get the nock off get the real thing.
