Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

**** UPDATE 12/4/2013 **** Schwinn customer service was top notch. After seeing my review they put a fairly generic response to call support (see below). Skeptical that phone support could/would fix the website, I called anyways, just after they closed. The next day however, a real person answered right away and put me in contact with the development team, who was able to recreate the problem (which was a rare a tricky bug that only happened if your longest workout was exactly at an hour mark, if my longest ride was 61 minutes then the problem wouldn't have been noticed). The support staff kept me in the loop the whole time including over the weekends. They also fixed all of the other errors that I had noticed. So while I'm going to keep my rating at 4 stars (I still wish the buttons were utilized better and the screen was dim-able... I would up it to 4.5 if I could), the customer support earns a solid 5 stars and will influence my future exercise purchases. As for the companion website itself... It's a visual view of your past workouts and achievements. I'd love to see it get expanded with more export options (LoseIt,FitBit,Etc.) and possibly a coaching module. Overall it's a simple but very nice dashboard and a lot easier to navigate than the LCD display. **** END UPDATE **** This is an attractive well built bike with some great features and just a few small problems. It took me a little over an 90 minutes to assemble it myself, if I had to build another and had a second set of hands I imagine it could be done in 30 minutes. Once it was built setting up the very bright control panel and first user was easy enough to do without instructions, but not exactly intuitive. If you're using it in a window lit room then it's not that bright, but at night I wish I could dim it a bit. Riding it is super comfortable and quite other than a status beep every 2 minutes, it's not too bad but it would be nice if it could be disabled. The amount of feedback is great including heart rate, speed, resistance, intensity, RPM, and more. Most of all, I liked that I got specific calorie data for my settings and not a generic average. The actual workout was really good. I normally run 10Ks and use biking to round out my training. I found level 1 was the only resistance level that felt even a little bit sloppy because it was so easy, but the maximum level 25 took a lot of strength while still delivering a smooth ride. What I couldn't understand was why so many buttons were dedicated to resistance and so few to the rest of the interface. Resistance can be increased by one of two + buttons, decreased by one of two - buttons, of jumped to directly by set to by numbers that line each side... The direct levels are 1,3,5,7,9,12,15,18,21,25... Seriously a confusing waste of 14 buttons. If they just gave us an up/down and a number pad that serve every level, plus it could be used everywhere else (instead of having to use up and down arrows to set things like your age/weight/time & distance goals) and it would still need 2 less buttons. When it comes to external technology however, it's really love/hate. Being able to watch a video on a tablet with some powered speakers is a huge win, especially since it will keep your device charged if you need it to. It has the option to save your workouts to a USB drive, which can be uploaded to their site and then to MyFitnessPal. Your workouts are save to a .DAT file which is in JSON format (this probably means nothing to you, but if you're a nerd like me then it means it's easy to use this data for other purposes). However when I registered and uploaded the file to SchwinnConnect, nothing appeared or worked. I tried other browsers, computers, even from the phone and the site simply does not work with plenty of JavaScript and 404 errors. I understand this may be a new service for a new bike model, but they really should just have a sign up to be notified page in the interim. I also hope they plan to integrate with other services than MyFitnessPal (even though it's great), since my fitness app of choice is Lose It! So overall, I'm very happy with the build and quality of the bike. I recommend this bike, however the few quirks to get used to and an unfinished companion site that I'm still waiting for bring my overall review down to 4 stars. The Great: + 25 levels of resistance... Level 1 is pretty much too easy and Level 25 is insane, plenty of room for growth here. + The seat is so easy to adjust, great for multi-user households (the computer supports 4 users) + Super quite ride at any level of resistance + Calories burned based on personal settings + Charges a phone/tablet/mp3 player and plays it through built-in speakers. + Decent 3 level fan + It congratulates you on new records for distance, time and calories. The Quirky: > The bright screen takes a little getting used to in the dark > The stand for the mp3 player blocks the screen with the main screen (although most of this is replicated in the lower screen) > It doesn't take long to get used to the interface, but it could have been so much better with a number pad and better prompts. > The 2 minute and congratulatory beeps, while subtle, could be annoying if you need absolute silence (and the machine itself is). > It requires a power plug. Understandable since it powers a bright back light and other devices, but other some bikes do not require the tether. The Bad: - The companion website Schwinn Connect just simply does not work as of this time. They really should have a coming soon page if it's not ready.