Arozzi Mezzo

So when it comes to office chairs, just a few years ago most of your options were going to be just what you might find in an office supply store, electronics store, or a department store. None of them were built for the extended use that you might put an office chair when gaming or even just working at your PC day to day. Today though there are more options than you could possibly consider, all in the gaming chair market. I’ve had the chance to check out a few different options over the years. Recently I took a look at Arozzi’s new Arena desk and when they sent that they also sent one of their chairs, the Mezzo. So now that we have been using the chair off and on over the past month or so I can finally “sit down” and talk a little more about it and see how it fits into the market.

Product Name:Arozzi Mezzo

Review Sample Provided by:Arozzi

Written by:Wes

Pictures by:Wes

Amazon Link:HERE

Packaging and Assembly

If you have never had an office chair, especially a gaming chair, shipped you might not know just how big and heavy it all is. It's just a chair right? Well, the Mezzo comes in this big box and weighs 60 pounds, so be ready to get a dirty look from your UPS guy/girl and be ready to bring it in.

Once you get the box opened up you will find that they have foam in between each layer to keep things from being damaged and even before you get everything out of the box the instructions are right near the top. They come with another paper with safety instructions on them and they break down the steps with line drawings. They also include a list of everything that should be included.

I pulled everything out of the box, pulled the plastic bags off of everything and made sure I had everything using the list in the instructions. On top of the components, Arozzi includes an allen wrench and a pair of white gloves. This might be the first time I’ve ever gotten anything in with white gloves, but it’s a nice touch if you don’t want to get fingerprints all over the chair. One thing I noticed is that the arm rests did come pre-installed, this isn’t always the case and is nice because it should save us a little time.

I started off by building out the base of the chair. You do this by pushing all of the wheels into the star shaped base. They are a little hard to get in, but once they start they pop right in. You also drop the hydraulic piston right into the center hole. You don’t need to press it in or anything and this part requires no tools. I did notice that the plastic sleeve that goes over the piston came in a little banged up, but it wasn’t bad enough for me to really worry about. The busted area will be up against the bottom of the chair anyhow. 

So like I said the armrests come pre-installed so the only thing I needed to do before putting the chair on the base was to install the leaning mechanism. The bolts for this are pre-attached to the bottom half of the chair, so you will need to remove them first. Then from there you line up the mechanism with the tilt knob facing the front and bolt the four bolts down tightly.

The bottom half of the chair then just sits right on top of the base. The piston goes in the hole in the bottom and is press fit so you don’t have to bolt anything.

At this point we are in the home stretch, you just have to attach the seat back to the rest of the chair. This attaches with four bolts, two on each side. Now be sure that you don’t touch the lean mechanism before you get the back installed. It is spring loaded and without having the back attached it will be hard to get it far enough back to easily install the back. Anyhow you just line up the bolts to the brackets on each side and tighten it all down. Lastly, you have to pop the plastic covers on. They attach to the two bolts and also down on the base of the chair, a bump with the palm of your hand should do it.

Photos and Features

Out of the nine different models that Arozzi have, the Mezzo is their third highest priced model and frankly, it is the most similar to the gaming chairs from companies like DXRacer. Arozzi also has a few other models that are closer to your standard office chair, only with a little extra flair but the Mezzo is basically a racing seat out of a car put on an office chair frame. You can get it in Blue, Green Black, Orange, Red, White, and Yellow. You would normally expect us to be all about getting the LanOC orange but from past experience with gaming chairs, I have been leaning towards the more muted colors like the blue we went with. The accent color isn’t really even used on the Mezzo all that much. There are two strips across the chair base and then two up the back of the chair. It is also in the piping around the outside edge and blue plastic in the fake 5 point harness holes on the back. When you are sitting in the chair the piping is the only part anyone is going to actually see.  

The Mezzo, like all of the competing chairs, comes with both a head pillow and a lumbar support pillow. The head pillow seemed to be filled with a normal pillow polyfill where the lumbar support is harder and feels like it is filled with foam padding. The pillow wraps around the top of the chair and it has the Arozzi logo embroidered on it as well as the top of the chair having the same logo only larger. Both logos seemed to have a bit of a tilt to them. I’ve seen DXRacer have the same problem as well in the past. I personally would prefer there to be no logo at all if it's going to be off, now that I’ve noticed it I won’t be able to unsee it in the future.  The lumbar support doesn’t have a logo, but it does have the two blue strips to match the strips in the chair and they did a good job of lining those up.

One of the main styling features of the Mezzo and really all of the racing themed chairs are the two holes in the top of the chair back. These, when used in a racing seat, are for the top two straps of a five-point harness to come through over your shoulders. For an office chair, I don’t think you really need to strap in like that though so they are mostly for decoration. They do however use them with the lumbar support pillow. It uses two straps that run through these holes and up under the back to hold the support in place. You can slide it up and down as high or as low as needed and it stays in place. While it does come pre-installed for you, they did include two clips to help you remove it if lumbar support doesn’t work for you.

One of the big differences with the Mezzo from Arozzi’s other chairs are the arm rests. Their lower end models use traditional arm rests where the top few chairs have these nicer designs. It looks like it is solid plastic but it is actually a partially flexible foam. They are both 3 inches wide and about 10 inches long. They use extremely thick steel brackets for support and the armrests themselves have height adjustment built in where the fixed armrests on the lower end models don’t have any adjustment. To adjust them you lift up on the tab just under the rest and you can raise and lower them three inches up and down.  

Here is a better shot of the two strips up the base of the chair, its weird to me they didn’t have them line up with the stripes going up the back of the chair, though. That said I wanted to touch on the material they use for the chair. Some companies will try to fancy it up to make it sound better but Arozzi gets right to the point on their website. The material is a pleather or fake leather material. This helps keep the costs down as a full leather chair can get really expensive, if you don’t believe me check out the Playseat Elite. I’m a little torn, part of me prefers a more standard fabric over the pleather but it does end up having its own benefits. This material holds up well to the wear and is also washable, so if you spill anything it isn’t going to stain. It is also less likely to hold scents, no one wants a chair that smells like farts and BO from those extended gaming sessions. Of course, there are downsides as well. This stuff doesn’t breath, so if you get hot you are going to get sticky up against it. It's also not really cat-friendly, so you want to keep their claws away from it.

What I really think is the best part about these gaming seats is the adjustability. Most office chairs can go up and down and you can even sometimes lean back. But with the Mezzo and most other gaming chairs you have those things and a few more features. On top of being able to lean the chair back, there is an adjustment knob up under the seat to adjust the tension on that spring. This way you can tune it to your weight and have just the right amount of force needed to lean back and to keep you back. You can also lock the chair to prevent it from leaning back, though I should point out you can’t lock it into any other position, some chairs have that as well. The big one though is the handle over on the right side of the chair that lets you adjust the seat back angle, this might seem like a small thing because car seats do this, but it is great to have in an office chair.

So for construction the base of the Mezzo is a star pattern and made out of plastic. This is in line with similarly priced models like the F series from DXRacer that also have plastic legs. When you go up to the next step up in capacity and models, a lot of the other manufacturers will move to metal bases, but at least right now Arozzi doesn’t have those models. For wheels the Mezzo has a standard sized wheel, I personally prefer a 2.5-inch wheel for rolling around on the carpet but these get the job done as well.

So I mentioned the adjustable seatback angle. I can’t just do that and not see what kind of range it has right? So here is the back set all the way forward to an angle that no one would be able to sit in and then all the way back. All the way back is nearly a bed but I wouldn’t really recommend sleeping in it. You can, however, find the angle that is most comfortable for you and run with it. This is really good for people like me who work in their chair and game in their chair, you can have it up for work but kick it back a little when it comes time to watch a movie or gaming.

Performance

For testing, we have had the Mezzo in the office for about a month and a half so we have had a good chance to check it out. Because I am a big guy that is without a doubt over the official capacity of the Mezzo I split the testing with my wife. This way I was able to get a feel for the chair but I have a second point of view from someone who better fits the target audience of this model. As you can see in the photos below she fits perfectly in the chair. Setting the arm rests to their highest setting fit her best but you can see right away that the lumbar support was messing with her. We went ahead and sat it aside, both of us hate the lumbar pillows that gaming chairs provide, they are way too thick.

When I was taking photos our cat Copper just had to get involved as well, he seems to like the chair as well. In fact, when it isn’t in use he has been the first to jump up in it and sleep in it. So while I wouldn’t really mix claws and the seat material, it is cat approved.

All joking aside, we spent a lot of time using the Mezzo and getting a feel for it. The overall construction is solid with the thick steel frame. The seat padding is good and comparable to the DXRacer F series if you have ever tried one of those out. Please keep in mind, this type of chair does have side supports on the bottom seat and near your lower back. They are there in real race seats to keep you from sliding around in the turns, as a big guy they limit the use of gaming seats more to larger framed models but they do give you a solid in your seat feeling when you fit the seat properly. Be sure to check the measurements on Arozzi’s website before picking up a chair to be completely sure.

It interesting just how much more comfortable the racing style of seats are compared to a traditional chair, specifically cheap office chairs. Part of it’s the solid construction, but I think it’s also because the side bolstering kind of just fits around you and you feel like you sink into the chair. The head rest is almost a requirement, it is really soft and comfortable, you can easily lean back and fall asleep. Without it though there is less padding in the top area and you will find it hard to get comfortable when leaning back.

Overall and Final Verdict

So far the Arozzi Mezzo has held up good in our testing. It is very comfortable, even when my parents visited while in the middle of testing out the chair I thought they were going to try to take it home with them. They specifically mentioned how much better it was for their backs compared to the run of the mill office chairs that they have. The adjustments are nice, especially the seat back tilt functionality and it is very comfortable. With the steel frame, the chair should hold up well over time.

I was a little bummed that Arozzi doesn’t have many options for bigger guys like me, finding a quality chair is especially hard as a big guy. I would also like to see more material options in the future. Beyond that my only real complaint about the chair was with the embroidery being tilted on both the pillow and headrest. Also, the lumbar support was just too thick and hard for me and my wife, I wish some of the chair manufacturers would offer one about half as thick.

Overall the Mezzo ends up being very similar to chairs like the F series from DXRacer. This isn’t a bad thing, though, this is a popular seat. So if you have ever tested out any of the other gaming chairs in this price range, the Mezzo is going to be similar. It will really come down to brand preference, availability, and if you prefer the dual strip styling over any of the other designs. I mention availability because that has been an issue in the past with other brands, this is a growing market and it shows sometimes with low availability, especially in the key buying times like black Friday, tax time, and on my birthday.

There is also the price of course and I listed this as a pro but I do want to explain why. With an MSRP of $329, I wouldn’t really consider the chair to be a big value, hell for a lot of people that might be the only big purchase they make all year long. But I was happy that Arozzi was able to keep the Mezzo in line with the pricing of similar models. This is also including free shipping as well and I’m sure the shipping costs for a 60-pound box like that aren’t cheap, so that adds a significant cost to it all. All in all, if you are on the market for a gaming chair, the Mezzo has all of the same features and performance, I would at least give it a look before picking out the chair you want to go with.

Live Pricing: HERE