Sole Fitness E98 Light Commercial Elliptical Machine

I will admit that my wife is the primary user of this unit and she is a tough customer. If the unit was not solid or lacked overall quality, she would complain. The 5 stars are well deserved in product quality and customer service. It is a bit of work to assemble, but once completed it does deliver and it's solid, quite and delivers a good work-out. Very smooth mechanics and intuitive dashboard. It does not have Internet capability, etc. But we're not interested in sharing our work-out effort via social network and these sort of things. Bottom line is, I can't find a reason to complain about the quality of the this equipment. I can only complement. Now, I was disappointed that a pulse monitor was not included with this unit as it is the top of the line model and lesser models include the heart rate monitor (which is worn across the chest). There are also work-out programs that require this sensor, if a tailored work-out is desired. So I was upset and prepared to argue as I have just spent top dollar for the top of the line and now need to buy an accessory. No way! Well, 1 minute into the call the support person says: "Sure, if you would like the pulse monitor, we'll send you one". Within the week I had a pulse monitor at no cost! So great product and great service. If I had my money back today and an opportunity to decide again from scratch, I would buy this elliptical again.

This machine is not power stride adjustable and definitely not self-generating or self-powering as i was made to believe. You can imagine my frustration after specifically contacting the customer care line to confirm both verbally and via email that this machine was self-generating before shelling out US$2,000 only to discover it doesn't when i could have settled for E35 same brand at about US$1,000 lesser. Not to mention that i had to ship this mammoth out all the way to Africa and now i am stuck with it. Am a bachelor weighing in at 77kg and live alone and don't necessarily need the commercial grade if this device wan't going to self-power to address the challenge of power-outages where i live. Even after contacting the customer service they seem a lot confused about its functionality on this issue, some say it does, other say it doesn't and rest not sure. I mean they shipped out a bulky replacement part but that didn't help. i got a technician the likes that have been all over the world installing complex industrial machinery and getting trained by the BIG names in the industry and got him to confirm to Sole on phone after checking the device that it wasn't built to self-generate. At that point the correspondences just kind of faded out... i am rating it a 1 star

E98 is well built with heavy duty parts. This is important as I learned when my previous Endurance E7 had two weld failures and bushing loosness after only 6 years of daily (7 mile or 400 calories) use. E98 has a heavy flywheel that smoothes the action. The pedal lower arms incline mechaism has nylon wheels that ride on rails-lthis ooks like potential design weakness- I will know after the first 1000 miles. Overall, machine is quiet and smooth. Requires frequent lubrication to keep wheels turning smoothly. Requires disappointing additional p[urchase of chest strap to use all functions. (Pulse rate-max heart rate etc) Assembly directions are poorly written and lack illustrations. This was not a good translation from the original Chinese! Sole could benefit from hiring a competent translater to improve the manual.//6

SHIPPING AND PACKAGING Summary: Weak, but the workout gods chose to punish me and it got here intact. I ordered and received the machine from Amazon. The no-name freight company that delivered it had it packed in the back and we (the skinny delivery kid and myself) were forced to drag its 200 pound bulk over the pallets loaded in front of it. The E98's cardboard and styrofoam box looked like it had tumbled through an Oklahoma tornado. My being in Tulsa, perhaps it had. The box was shredded, with large gaping holes and dented corners. I was very concerned about its condition so we dutifully noted the condition of the box on the packing slip and I took a few photos with my camera. That evening I unpacked the machine and was surprised to find that it looked to be alright (damn). ASSEMBLY Summary: Took 4.5 hours staying after it steadily. You won't go wrong if you plan to make a day of it. Expect to spend 20-30% of your time trying to interpret the assembly instructions (seriously). I received this machine from Amazon two days before I went to Paris for a week so I (chickened out) elected not to assemble it until I returned. Walking Paris was a pretty good workout itself (I told myself). Upon my return I confronted the pile of battered boxes and metal tubing and took to it. As posted by others above and under the other Sole Ellipticals the instructions are pretty weak. The biggest problem to my mind is that for the four major steps of assembly there is but one explosion drawing showing where the parts go; to make matters worse, parts that you are not responsible for installing are in the explosions. Four blocks of text and four explosion drawings. Merry Christmas. It would help greatly if the assembly were broken up into more explosions that show closeup details of the area of the machine referenced instead of the entire machine. To top it off, nowhere in or on the manual is there a simple photograph or drawing of the final assembled product. ALL you get are the explosions. I went online and pulled up an E98 photograph as reference which helped me a bit in stage 4 where you're putting the outer aesthetic pieces on. Assembly took 4.5 hours straight through. Clearer instructions could have saved an hour probably; there's a fair amount of head scratchin'. WORKOUT Summary: Silent, sleek death machine. Like a ninja dropping from the rafters and assassinating my ego. I'm 48 years old, 6'4" and Oklahoman. I like thick steaks and ice cold beer and it shows. I haven't exercised regularly since high school so I'll leave the knowledgeable workout critiques to the perky young hardbodies in the youtube videos. Suffice it to say that just putting this thing together was a workout for me. Looking at the E98 fully assembled makes me winded. Climbing on for more than four minutes at a stretch in "fatburn" mode is like icepicks in my thighs. The first time I got off after a real workout I almost fell down because my legs were like Jello. That's how you know it's working, right? OVERALL Good machine, weak manual with obvious flaws. Fully assembled machine is pretty nice, you just have to push through. It's LONG, TALL and HEAVY. If you're tall and you have low ceilings and/or ceiling fans you best take some measurements lest you be bumpin' your noggin. I'm 6'4" with 8' ceilings and I have only a few inches to spare. BONUS UI MANUAL ADDENDUM Not listed in the manual or indicated on the unit is the fact that the upper row of large horizontal buttons can be used as digits 1 through 10. If you need to type in a weight of 235 then you may do so by pressing the second, third and fifth buttons rather than hitting UP and DOWN a couple hundred times. Be nice if that were in the manual wouldn't it? Yeah it would.

Was broken in arrival

It is commercial strength yet easy to use. Best of all I can roll out of bed in the morning and do my workout without the lights even being turned on. It took a little more time than expected when assembling the unit, about 9 hours. The instructions were fairly easy to follow. You just have to make certain you understand them so read them a few times before each step. If I can do it, than truly anybody can. It is awesome.

Absolutely love it. A bit hard to understand the building instructions but the performance is worth the money. I love the speakers!!!

My wife loves this thing. Well built professional grade. Better than the ones at the gym.