Heavily built to hold up to daily residential use. Smooth, quiet. The stroke is about 10% shorter and about 10% higher than what I'm used to at the gym, but I will probably get used to it. The first thing I looked for was instructions about unpacking, there are none. Someone engineered the package to unload from the top down, and for the supporting Styrofoam blocks to be removed as you went. Unfortunately, a madman with a tape machine at the factory taped all around the foam blocks before the packaged parts were placed into the carton. About a third of the way into unpacking you need to get some foam blocks out to access the remaining parts but you can't, they are taped quite solidly in place with tape that no knife can reach! I chose two long metal parts with minimal foam covering them and pried them up, breaking the foam.Most of the assembly is done with machine screws having a 6mm Allen head. I used the supplied Allen key to assemble the first two parts and it was more work than it should have been, the threads are stiff and the fit of the Allen head is tight -making it difficult to insert and remove the key for each turn. I jumped in the car and bought a 3/8" socket with a 6mm Allen drive in it at the home store for $1.97. That allowed me to use a socket wrench to complete assembly and it was a good decision. The screws holding this machine together require more torque than is practical to apply using a 3" Allen key. I imagine that using the supplied tool would result in some screws coming out during use. With a 10" socket wrench I was able to solidly torque in the fasteners and the job went much faster because of the ratchet action of the socket wrench. There are six wavy spring washers used behind some of the articulating bearings and the instructions don't show this very well. They are identified as part "F" in the instructions, watch out for them. If you miss putting them in, you have to disassemble a greasy joint to install them later. Another potential (but minor) trap concerns the handle bars. Before fully tightening them, each must be swung fully to the left or the right. There is some play in the screw holes and failing to swing them each fully to the outside of this play results in a different grip angle for each handlebar (like a cow with one crooked horn). The instructions just show arrows to the outside, it's not very clear. I had to re-position one of mine.I have used the machine only for a test session. The MP3 speakers sound good. The fan is adequate. I was able to set the date and time intuitively. Oh, and they include a double-ended stereo mini-phono plug so you're all set to plug your MP3 player into their amplified speakers. The machine felt solid and quiet and I look forward to tomorrow morning's "jog."UPDATE: I found out the hard way that the handle bars angle in at the top and can occupy the same space as your forearm if you reach for the control panel while they are moving. I got hit (painfully) while reaching for my MP3 player and its phono plug was ripped from the socket as my arm was pushed backward. I'd call this a design flaw. A user should be able to access the control panel without risk of injury while using the machine.UPDATE 2: I've had this machine for two months now and I upgraded my rating from four to five stars. I think it's an excellent value for a home machine. I am completely used to the stride length and height and I think that the mileage count is more accurate than on the machine I had been using at the gym. The distance vs. time seems to better correlate to the days when I actually ran for exercise (back when I had knees). I strongly recommend this elliptical.UPDATE 3: I'm really thinking about taking away one star on account of the problem with the location of the handle bars mentioned in "Update 1" (above). I can't operate the control panel or change the song on my MP3 player (on the shelf of the control panel) without getting bopped in the elbow by the damn handle bars. I did a test today and ran each bar back to its rearmost position, then tested to see what I could reach on the control panel without my elbow touching the handlebar. Each hand could reach nothing except the bottom half of the speaker located on the opposite side! I'm average height 5'8" and I could reach NOTHING on the control panel without interference with the moving handlebars. What I have been doing is pulling my elbows in to an uncomfortable angle, then reaching up the middle to make changes on the panel. Still, I get hit sometimes. Neither can I rest my hands on the top of the small handle bars that contain the "heart monitor" pickups. This also results in getting my outer elbows whacked. Changing the shape of the handle bar bend so that they don't bow inward so much would fix this. So might relocating the handlebar attachment holes. With this issue fixed, the machine would be a perfect "10."