Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This rowing machine is the bees knees of home exercise equipment. I've been looking for a way to exercise that takes minimal effort (read: I don't need to put on a sports bra for this) while getting maximum output (read: sweating like a sinner in church). Here's a breakdown of the pros and cons. Pros: 1. incredibly quiet. The actual rowing bit doesn't make any noise at all. What does make noise is the seat as it goes back and forth. The noise level is minimal and would be perfect for a living situation where rabble rousers would be discouraged. 2. the footprint of the machine is minimal. When the seat bit is folded up, it barely takes up any space. I leave mine unfolded because I have the space for it, but if you wanted to keep it's square footage to a minimum, this would certainly beat out the floor space of an elliptical (snooze-machine) or a treadmill. 3. you get a serious workout. Like serious. After 10 minutes of moderate effort on level 2, I was pleasantly moist. I have since been banned by my family for using the word moist. Anything above level 3 or 4 is good effort. Above 4 and you could probably carry on a conversation, but you wouldn't want to. 4. my darling husband put this together for me. I can't speak to the ease of which it was performed, but he said it was fairly straight forward and took him less than 30 minutes. 5. Cost...you can't beat this price. The quality of the machine for the price is pretty amazing. Cons: 1. there's no way to track how many meters you've rowed. It tracks strokes, time, and calories. If I had a choice, I would have nixed the calories and added in distance to the monitor. 2. Speaking of the monitor, it's quite tiny and hard to see without my glasses on. 3. It doesn't have a virtual 3D glasses option. This machine would be perfect if it came with a virtual reality system that put me on the river in Oxford while rowing to my little hearts content in the middle of New Jersey.