Way back in March, I wrote a very long post about a recent treadmill desk purchase. It was a long article, because the research was quite involved and I put a lot of time into trying to get it as cheap as possible. In some ways, I was trying to be extremely frugal to see how it fits. Well, “extremely frugal” is probably a bad phrase when you spend are spending $1300.
I settled on the NordicTrack Treadmill Desk model #24951. I’m just a sucker for any product with “#24951” in the name. Seriously though, I cared about three things when it came to a treadmill desk and this model fit them all:
- It was a treadmill desk – You can hundreds of treadmills and thousands of desks. There’s probably only a dozen combinations of the two.
- It folds up – We don’t have a McMansion, so we can’t dedicate a room to treadmill. Folding up to save floor space was very important to us.
- It was a full-speed treadmill – Every other treadmill desk I looked at topped at fast speed. Buying another treadmill for running defeats the purpose of saving space and money.
I’m going to make this review short. There are videos online that can give you more information. However, for the most part, it has delivered on its promise. It nailed the three things I’ve been looking for, so I’m a happy customer. A review that’s all sunshine and rainbows is no fun, and if I can supply a little constructive criticism that makes the never better, why not?
So here’s what I didn’t like:
- Set-up – It was beyond aggravating to put together. Even today, I feel like just got lucky with some of the steps. It wasn’t particularly easy to understand, but that was a small part of the problem. It was physically lining things up just right. You need two people because it is heavy, but also so you can get different views at the same time as things line-up.
- The Noise – I should have expected that having a big motor would be loud. It can be hard to hear videos on laptops and tablets with small speakers. It’s nothing that a pair of headphones can’t fix.
- The Height – Many people have complained that it raise up high enough. I think it could be a bit higher, but I also feel like this complaint is overblown.
- Me – I have to point the figure back at myself. I don’t use it as much as I thought I might. We’ve had good weather and taking a break while walking the dog seems to be a better fit. We both work at home (he’s very secretive about his dog business), so it is good for us to get outside and enjoy some vitamin D. I think the real test will be winter. If we even have a fraction of the snow that we had this past winter, I should be able to give it more use.
Since the desk was something that both me and my wife thought we’d use, I just got her opinion. She was of the same mind, she doesn’t use as much as she thought she would. She’s more into running and it is hard to work and “run” at the same time. Instead, we’ll watch some Netflix on it. However, between the two kids and working, that opportunity probably doesn’t present itself much.
Overall, it’s a good product and my biggest complaint would be the set-up my own routine.
Please let me know if you want to sell this. I will come and pick it up. I very much would like to have this particular treadmill desk.
Of course you can’t work when RUNNING. When you’re working, you’re supposed to walk. So how does this treadmill do for that purpose?
I read a negative review of this item on workwhilewalking.com — and I was wondering if they were just being snobs.
Also, they said that walking a lot on a running treadmill can cause it to wear out very quickly. Has that been your experience?
If your work is watching a video, you can at least do that while running. However, the idea was to have one treadmill that can do double duty, so I don’t have to have two in my house.
I was walking dogs a lot, so I didn’t need more walk on the treadmill very much. However, I’ve recently (the last couple of weeks) been walking on it on more and after about 20 miles in that time, I haven’t had any issues.