Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I will start off by saying I hate exercise and anything that resembles it. It is the worst thing ever, however the Dark Lord of Health has forced me to start doing it for the more or less first time. I am 35 and while walking a great deal living in NYC the cardiologist insists it isn't enough as I have high blood pressure. Because I hate exercise I have been pretty ok with taking pills for the blood pressure, but recently my friend got a fancy rowing machine with water in it. I tried it for 30 seconds out of curiosity and said, yeah I can probably bear this if I had one. Now, I didn't want to take out a home equity loan to buy something that I wasn't sure if I was going to seriously use and I don't have a lot of room in my apartment so googling reviews led me to this. It isn't heavy, stands upright and isn't intrusive, and it is cheap. I have been using it 4 days a week for 20 minute sessions for a month now. I am proud of myself. It certainly gets my heart rate up and I turn into a sweaty mess. It is about as bearable as cardio can be for me. That says a lot. Observations: The jointed rowing arms is really great. Wide range of motion and you can change your rowing technique to work different muscles. Machines that you just pull straight back don't have this versatility and I wouldn't consider another machine that doesn't have this style "paddles". The display is good enough. It counts time, how many rows you make, and calorie burn. I don't think it is sophisticated enough to know what tension setting you are using, but rather like a calorie per row count. It would be greatly improved if they showed you the rate at which you are rowing such as "30 rows per minute". That would be helpful to know if you don't want to drift under a certain rowing rate, otherwise you have to do math in your head as you're using it by trying to divide rows done by the time you've been on it, which is nearly impossible when you're disoriented, breathing heavily, and miserable. The tension setting is kind of weird, you just turn the knob on the hydraulic and have to kind of guess what tension it is one by trial and error, it doesn't click into place and there isn't an arrow indicating what level you have it set on. No biggie. The legs aren't very sticky. You definitely need to put this on a rubber mat of some kind if you don't want to scoot all over the place. Also, because it doesn't weigh much if you are really getting into it you can pick up the front and back during the workout forcing you to go easier. This isn't much of an issue for me because I can't maintain that level of rowing for more than 30 seconds anyway. It isn't loud, but it does make the hydraulic "door closing" sound. I blast music anyway so not a problem, but I do live in a condo building and haven't had any nastygrams come under my door so there's that. Many reviews complain their feet slip out of the foot pedals. I have not had this issue, but one of the foot pedals cracked on me. I contacted Amazon and they got in touch with the manufacturer to send me a new foot pedal. No harm no foul, it is $150 and kind of expected. So am I an exercise convert? Do I love it now? No, it stinks, but it kind of works out for me because I hate it and it gives me anxiety just knowing that I have to do it, much like everything else in life including things that I enjoy. That said, it is a great machine and arguably the best $150 I have ever spent.