This product is an excellent buy at the price and I am exceedingly pleased at my purchase. I bought this over an year ago and have used it consistently since then. It is very well made and lets you get on with your exercise.
Pros:
* Very sturdy in my experience. Once put together properly, the equipment is rock solid. The equipment parts are heavy for a reason; you'll appreciate the sturdiness once you start using it. The handlebar movement was smooth and fluid, and more importantly, has continued to remain so.
* Quite feature rich as detailed above. Seat can be adjusted for height and reach. Footplate can be fixed in one of two positions. Resistance levels can be adjusted. Hand pulse sensors to monitor heart rate. Recovery mode to indicate how well your heart rate recovers in a 60-second period at end of exercising.
* LCD control at the front is really well laid out. The screen is split into a top and bottom section. The bottom section shows rpm, time, distance, calories and pulse. It shows a running count of time, distance and calories which ticks over at 99, unless you're using it a target mode where it counts down to zero from the target. The top section cycles through each of rpm, time, distance etc at 10-15 sec intervals. The LCD panel probably was the single biggest factor in motivating me to keep working out - the fact that I can visually see how much effort I've put in.
* Silent! If put together properly, it works without creaks and aches. After several months of use, it did start creaking once, but application of oil at the creaking joints and it has stayed silent since.
* Quite compact for a crosstrainer. The base of the crosstrainer bars jut out a bit during use, but not by much. For a person like me who doesn't have too much space to spare, it's an ideal buy.
* It's easy to move around on a flat surface. The rubber treads are excellent in this regard. I've never had the trainer move when exercising, yet the rubber treads really do make it easy to move the trainer around. They don't leave any marks on the floor either.
Cons:
* Can be difficult to put together. It is the toughest piece of equipment I've assembled; it took me around 2 hours to do it. I don't recollect the total number of parts involved, but there were quite a lot. Some of the parts are quite heavy and assembling them without a second person around can be a thrilling experience. The instructions I seem to remember being a bit cryptic. I finally relied on the engineering-style machine drawing showing the parts fitting together as that seemed easier to follow.
* Disassembling it for any reason is even harder. I tried it once and I failed. I've since decided that I'm not disassembling it when I move house as I'm not willing to spend the time and effort it'd take to disassemble and then assemble it again.