Stamina X Air Rower

I've only had my Stamina X Air Rower for about a month now and I am very impressed with it at this point. Even though it is China built the quality is quite high.Both my wife and I use it almost daily. I'm using it to try & rebuild my muscles that statin drugs had destroyed & my wife is using it for pre knee surgery therapy to improve the bending angle of her knees & to strengthen her leg muscles before her surgery. So far we have had no problems with the rower. It was very easy for one person to assemble, took me about a half hour from unboxing it to riding it. I had to be careful when removing it from the box & all the packing as the plastic bag that contained all the screws, nuts & bolts had ruptured and there was hardware scattered throughout the large box & in all the packing materials. I inventoried it all before starting to assemble it just to be sure that I had everything. As a good tip for assembling it, don't use the included open ended wrench to final tightening the bolts & nuts. Use a real wrench so you get the hardware tight enough. I went over every nut, bolt & screw just to be sure everything was tight like it should be. The monitor has been working just fine so far. The batteries were a little difficult to get snapped into the battery box as the box seemed slightly too small but once in all has worked well. As far as noise levels that some folks complain about, we don't find the noise level to be high. I listen to my iPod player (not with ear buds), and only have to turn it up one click to hear it while rowing. I can see where if you are using it in a small room with poor acoustics it would be considered noisy. We have it in our finished off basement in a larger room. We do have a few complaints in which Stamina could improve this rower easily. First, with my small boney butt the moulded seat is very uncomfortable for me after the first 5 minutes or so. The padded seat on other Stamina models should be much better for me. I use a foam kneeling pad on the seat & that helps to resolve the problem. I know many others have complained about this seat and it should be quite simple for Stamina to put the padded seat on this rower. Second, the handle bar that you pull with should be two or three inches longer on each end as I pull it with my hands passing on the outside of my knees. I have to have the bar on the inside edges of my hands in order to do this as it just isn't long enough. This would be a very simple fix to just make the bar longer. I go all the way forward to the forward stop on the seat track as my knees are very flexible, which makes this short handle bar more of a problem. As a minor issue, the display is a little hard to read under certain lighting conditions but that doesn't bother me as I only use it as a timer, the rest of the info on it is useless to me as I don't count calories & could care less how many strokes I do. I'm after a mild workout to help restore muscles. When you first get on the machine & start rowing you don't feel like you are going to get much of a workout but after 15 minutes or more you realize that you are getting more than you thought. For those with bulging biceps & legs looking for a real body building machine you might want to look at several other types of equipment besides this rower as you might be too strong for it already & really have to pull hard to get the workout you are looking for. I increase my tempo after the first 5 minutes of warmup on it & it does the job just fine for me. I really enjoy the slight breeze the fan blows back onto me as I row as it helps to keep me at the right temp. I don't sweat or get a rapid heart rate when exercising as I'm in fairly good shape yet at 65 years old and I'm up to 30 minutes each time I ride the rower now. I row at a moderate pace & alternate my hand position on the bar, that is fingers up or fingers down to exercise different muscle groups. I also alternate the level that I pull the bar at, sometimes towards my belly, other times towards my chest, & other times towards my nose, again to exercise different muscles. I am very satisfied with the workout that I am getting from the Stamina. I will sometimes let my legs do more work than my arms so I work the leg muscles more. The point is, don't just sit there & do the same ol thing for 15 to 30 minutes as you won't get the workout that you could be achieving by alternating your style. I hope to update this post as we rack up more time on the rower and will post the results we achieve by using it regularly. I hope Stamina will listen to the complaints that folks have and improve this great rower by making minor changes to it, like the seat & handle bars.