Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this elliptical at a local shop on sale yesterday, picked it up in a truck and assembled and used it all in the same night. First of all, this box is crazy heavy. It's going to take 2-3 strong people to maneuver it anywhere. My plan was to disassemble the box in the first room and take the pieces into the basement where I would assemble the unit completely. All parts in the box were easy for one person to move except for the flywheel and attached legs. The bulkiness and weight make it almost impossible to remove from the box unless you break it down. I ended up calling a friend over where it took 3 of us to move the bulky piece. From there it took 3.5 hours to assemble fully by myself. My first suggestion is to only open one "section" of nuts and bolts at a time and organize and count them using the reference chart. Doing this made me realize that one of the washers had accidentally slipped into another section and saved me a ton of time trying to locate it. Also, the screwdriver and wrenches included were decent but if you have access to a nice set of socket wrenches, it is going to save you a lot of time cranking down on some of the heavier bolts and also allow you to get better torque on the critical areas of the device which can lead to noises if not tightened properly. The build construction of the pieces seemed to be very good. Everything fit perfectly and the build went without problem. Before you put all the plastic trim pieces on (which cover a lot of the bolted joints) test drive the elliptical for a while. If you hear any knocks, go back to the areas where the arms are bolted together and torque them down more. This eliminated a small knock for me. You may hear a squeak in the back area but that means you need to apply some of the supplied lube to the metal rails where the rubber wheels roll along. After doing this, the machine was near silent. I am 6'1" and the ceiling in my basement is shy of 7.5' (~90"). I would say at my height and ceiling height this is the absolute minimum you want. My head nearly touches my rafters of my unfinished ceiling while standing on it on the lowest incline. I had to move the machine parallel to the rafters so that my head would be positioned between them. It's a little tight but doable. You are going to ideally want an 8 foot (finished) ceiling if you are pushing 6'. No complaints at all with the operation of the elliptical. I did a 20 minute session on lowest resistance and experience no discomfort in the knees or ankles. Holding onto the upper arms while riding seems to cause you to lean a little too far forward so I tend to grip a little lower. There is a nice little ledge built into the display which is perfect for fitting an iPad and built in speakers that can be utilized. I will update this review in the future as it gets more use.