The bean bag is a stone-cold classic. Filling professional lofts, student flats and playrooms since the 1960s, it’s a universal piece of lo-fi design, that was more or less perfected the first time out. That said, modern companies like Big Bertha Original have seen that there’s clear room for improvements, nipping and tucking the classic bean bag into new, more contemporary forms, with modern, harder-wearing fabrics and updated ‘beans’. What that amounts to, in the Big Bertha Ultra Lux Gaming Chair, is a bean bag that’s comfortable, can take some punishment, and is perfect for the longest gaming sessions you can muster.
To be sure we understand each other, bean bags are not full of beans of the baked, broad or green variety, and nor are they made from plastic or paper bags. The Ultra Lux is a fabric bean bag with an additional fabric chair back built into it, with the beans moving freely between the two and sculpting to your body when you settle down into it. Because it moulds to your body as you sit down it’s incredibly comfortable, and the extra structure of the chair back means that you’re also really well supported in a way I’ve not experienced from a bean bag before.
Our review chair came in grey cord, which, purely by luck, matched our sofa perfectly. If you happen to have bought a cord sofa in the past five years or so – there’s a good chance you’ve been to DFS at some point – you’ll know how soft and hard-wearing the fabric is, and through our testing it stood up to plenty of punishment, as well as the requisite popcorn and biscuit crumbs that any seat manages to accumulate, even when you haven’t eaten anything.
Thankfully, it’s stain resistant if you do have a food or drink based snafu, and refillable if someone manages to make their way through the dual zips – during our testing these thankfully stopped the inside beans becoming outside beans. The beans themselves are made from SupremeX polystyrene, which is designed to last longer and be more durable than competitors offerings, and through our time with the Ultra Lux, we’ve not noticed any noticeable loss of bean density, or the bag – in essence – deflating, so they appear to be doing exactly what they’re designed for.
The biggest problem I’ve had with the Ultra Lux is that I struggle to get into it. Not because I lack the flexibility to sit closer to the floor, but because my 8 year-old has claimed it as his own. For someone much smaller than myself it literally turns into a nest, and he’s generally found secured within it with Lego City on the TV and an iPad in hand looking far too pleased with himself.
Seriously, it’s almost upsetting how pleased with himself he is, and I have to be faster than an 8 year-old if I want to take my turn in the chair. Luckily, he goes to school and I get to stay at home some days, so the joke’s on him. Thanks to the headrest, it’s ideal for a sneaky midday nap, which I absolutely don’t do because I am consistently working hard.
While our review unit was grey, there’s a whole range of different colours and a choice of alternate fabrics to wrap your beans up in. The Aegean Blue colour that they use in a lot of their advertising looks particularly good, and I’m already thinking of picking up a second one for a different room.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Ultra Lux, or indeed any of the Big Bertha bags, is that they don’t cost very much. You can currently pick one up direct from the Big Bertha Original website for £109.90, and I think that’s phenomenal value, particularly for the build quality and extreme comfort you’re going to experience for a very long time.