Bladez Fitness

I purchased the Bladez SX5i from Amazon [Woot]. I use it for 30 minutes, five times a week, while watching the evening news etc. I am 68 years old and reason I have for buying the machine is heart health. I had been working out on a machine at my condo gym every other night, and my doctor said to step it up to 5 times a week. The machine in the condo was often being used and I had to wait in line. The SX5i was to solve this problem.The shipper left the box on my front door, rang the bell and ran I mean really "RAN AWAY". It was very heavy and I guess he didn't want to help me drag it inside.I have several complaints about it. The first is the ability to take a heart rate, which is what I wanted to monitor most. It has static handles and movable handles. The heart rate contacts are only on the static handles. Taking them off the static handles to use the machine at its fullest, and I lose the heart rate connection. But there seemed to be a simple way around this. And that was a heart rate belt that you ware on your chest. The belt sends a signal to the machine. I sent several emails to the Bladez that were never answered as to what type of belt to use, so I called them and was told that any "Polar" heart rate belt would work. So I ordered one from Amazon that also sent a signal to a watch. My reasoning was that I could also use it for running and hiking etc. Well it didn't send a single to the machine, so I called again and was told that I needed a stand along belt. So I ordered a Polar T-34 coded. Well that didn't work so I called again and was told that it should be the" non-coded" one, so I ordered the t-34 "non-coded". And guess what, that didn't work either, so I called again and after some research on their part, was told that the machine I had did not work with a heart rate belt. I will mention that in every call, I gave the model number of the machine I had purchased.The other complaint I have is the unique feature of the machine that lets you put your iPad on it and use a program from a company called "Pafers" to monitor and track your progress. A great idea, but it totally missed the point and is very poorly executed. You have to wonder what the Pafers people are thinking. I will not get into my complaints about the Pafers program because this is about the Blades SX5i except to say that it only has one routine that cannot be adjusted up or down, does not provide a history or a meaningful way to track your progress.Just to be fair, I sent the above comments to the company via their "Contact us" web page to let them explain and got the following reply:"Error: This form is temporarily restricted. Please contact Accounts and Billing to resolve this issue with the account. Thank you."

Everything about this elliptical is great, EXCEPT for the fact that you can't hold the middle hand grips (where you do the heart rate) without having the moving arms hit you in the forearm. I'm only 5'10'', so it's not like if I was shorter it wouldn't hit me in the arm. It's impossible to run while holding the middle grips, so you're forced to always hold the side arms. This gets annoying not being able to change your stance/grip. So disappointed with that fact. The heart rate monitor also doesn't work, but I think that may be because when I moved it was on an open-air truck and it rained a little during the trip, so can't really knock it for that. Very sturdy and quality construction, but the arm design makes zero sense.

WOW! This is an amazing machine for the price, 500 plus free freight from sport chalet. At first I was skeptical about buying this machine because of the very few reviews available online, and because the company Bladez was bought out by BH Fitness, I was concerned about warranty and parts etc. I called BH Fitness prior to purchase and was assured that the 1 year in-home as well as the 5 years on all parts was still being honored and that I will have no problem getting parts or in-home service in the future. The elliptical is very well built, and very sturdy. Most of the machine was pre-assembled within the packaging carton. It was very easy to put the remaining parts together, everything fit as it should without issue and was done in less than an hour. The machine is very smooth, and very quiet. The stride and position does feel strange the first time you use it especially so if you have used different machines in the past, but you will quickly become accustomed. The stride and position is NOT uncomfortable, it just takes getting use to. I was able to easily do an hour on this machine without any pain on my ankles or feet. My previous machine I would only be able to do 40 minutes top and my feet/ankles would be killing me. OMG, no pain now, amazing workout. Buy this machine now, you will not have any regrets.