I am pleasantly surprised at how much I like this stepper. For starters, I was not enthused about the cable type steppers which display no obvious means of resistance control. In fact I questioned whether those types of machines had any useful level of resistance at all. Those cute girls on those videos don't look like they are working very hard. Also, there seems to be steppers in the $100-$200 range and then $1000 monstrosities and up, with little in between. I figured if this wears out and I like it otherwise, I can afford to replace it. I have owned this for about two months now and can say that the unit is structurally sound and sufficiently stable. I have had zero problems in terms of function or stability of the machine on my carpeted bonus room floor. It arrived well packed and undamaged, the assembly is a breeze (tools provided), fasteners are very substantial (hex key cap screws) as is the tubular framing which is 2" diameter and finished with a nice gloss gray paint job. No issues with installation and function of the timer, worked fine from the get-go. In setting up the resistance the approach I took was to increase the resistance to the point where under a normal pace and making sure to use the full travel of the cylinders, the cylinders had sufficient resistance to avoid bottoming out on the frame. If resistance is set too low for your pace/weight you will hit bottom on every stroke. For my weight and a reasonable pace I set the resistance to about 5.5 on the scale of 12 - both cylinders have identical resistance as near as I can tell. When you do double time on the machine you will tend to ride much higher up on the cylinder travel. The total range of the stepper is about 14" and I think it is good practice to use as much of the travel as possible. I have yet to experiment with additional increases in resistance, opting for longer duration in my workout for now. Your heart rate will escalate rapidly on this and if you can do 5 minutes straight the first time out you are probably in the minority. I am 6-0, 195 lbs and 65 years old, and in good physical condition, but needed better aerobic conditioning. I usually see a heart rate of about 135-140 after my second 5 minute session. Initially I could only do about 3 minutes before I had to stop and am now doing three sets of 5 minutes with a two minute break between. I get a very significant aerobic workout plus excellent low impact strength development in my quads, glutes, and to a lesser extent my lower abs and hips. From my perspective this machine does what it should functionally, and I don't know how you could get anything better for this level of investment.