Schwinn 460 Reviews

Great piece of Equipment!!!
Setup myself, was easy, may need 1 other person to help. Machine works great, resistance good, I like the variable training (stair master vs eliptical) style of training. Well worth the price.

High Quality Home Machine
This is the first elliptical I have owned. I purchased it to reduce the beating my "old" joints have been getting when running outdoors or on a treadmill. I'm primarily interested in cardio exercise from this machine, which it provides exceptionally well for me. I agree that the variable stride design probably does not provide the fore-aft resistance of traditional ellipticals, but that's not an issue for me and overall, I find the workout to be excellent. As an aircraft maintenance technician for many years, I can attest to the quality construction of this machine. I was pleasantly surprised at the engineering, materials and workmanship applied to it--far above what I expected for a home unit in this price range. Here's a critical piece of information for anyone wanting to use this where there is a low ceiling: when the foot pads are even in the elliptic path, it will add 18-inches to your height. I'm 5'-9", so this places the top of my head at 7'-3". I placed the unit in my basement where the ceiling is only 7'-6". You get the picture. Bottom line--I couldn't be happier with this machine, and highly recommend it!

Very Pleased!
The hunt for the ideal home elliptical is tough, unless you want to spend a fortune. There's so many choices, even in the under $1000 range. I spent a long time researching various ellipticals and decided to purchase the Schwinn 460.

My girlfriend and I are both over 6' tall, and though the standard 18" stride length of most sub-$1000 range machines works just fine, it's not ideal, and it's nicer to have a longer stride, if you can find one. I liked the idea of the Schwinn 460 because it offers variable stride lengths from 2" to 26" depending on how fast you're moving. But it's worth noting, you don't adjust it manually, it depends on the amount of work you put in!

This is also good if you just want to step a little, or want to go all-out and run like crazy with a 26" stride. I might have been happy with a Schwinn 430 or 431 (or various other 18" stride machines) if both myself and girlfriend were not so tall.

Delivery/Packaging: Yes, this is heavy. I was happy the delivery man was kind enough to bring it into my apartment for me. Schwinn did a great job packing this thing up and it seemed well protected while shipping. It took me a while to take all the parts out, and some are fairly heavy, but none showed any sign of damage except a few scratches on the mast (conveniently covered by the cupholder).

Assembly: I must admit, I was dreading this stage, but to be honest, it was seamless and much more straightforward than I expected. The instruction manual has decent sized pictures, all the parts are well labelled, and I found nothing confusing. They recommend someone to help at various stages, but I did it all myself. Admittedly, I probably could have done with some help in places, because there's a few spots when an extra hand would be useful, but it's not essential. Some of the parts are heavy though, especially the main body. With a bit of concentration and effort, it's straightforward. If anything, it's more 'fiddly' than strenuous. The tools provided are perfectly passable. You might want to use your own 17mm socket wrench, but I found the supplied one just fine, because on the whole you just use that for leverage and twist bolts tighter using the hex key.

Appearance: Steel tubing on this machine is thick and well constructed. All the parts are smooth and well-engineered and everything feels very stable. No squeaks, no rattles, smooth operation. I was aware of Tiffany's review below stating some issues with the machine feeling like it can topple over... I really can't see that, I have to give the machine a damn good shake to even get it to wobble. On a purely aesthetic note, the 460 does look a little different to other ellipticals, it's certainly more angular than most other machines, but I like it. The LCD display is clear and the touchscreen functions well. Being tall, there's a little bit of 'fade' from up high looking down on the display, but it's still very legible. The machine does stand quite tall though, at their highest point, the pedals are over 20" off the ground, so those with low roofs might need to be careful.

Operation: So this is the key thing, and so far I'm delighted with the Schwinn 460, and greatly relieved I made a good choice. The variable stride pattern does take some time to get used to and the strides are independent, so to begin with it can feel a little disorienting and I sometimes got myself 'out of sync'. But even when this happens, it's not like you fall off the machine or feel unsafe, and within a short time you get used to it. I love varying my work out from longer strides to shorter strides. I know some others have commented that there's no arm resistance, but I disagree: longer strides require longer arm pulls, shorter strides require less. Pull harder and you go faster and work out more. Up the resistance, and you WILL work your arms if you're striding long! This is common on all cheaper ellipticals, and I've only seen very expensive gym machine offering separate upper-body arm resistance independent of your legs. The 460 offers a nice range of resistance, some good workout courses, the ability to construct your own workout patterns, and of course, the 'inspiring' messages telling you you're doing great or not working hard enough!

Anyway, I hope this review is helpful for anybody looking into this machine. There's some good reviews here on Amazon so far, but fewer out on the web, and some of the seem suspiciously 'spammy' or are those generic fitness equipment blogs where you're not quite sure who's really offering the review.

I think there's some discussion as to whether the variable stride thing is a gimmick, or perhaps that it doesn't work you as hard as a regular elliptical or exercise the 'right' muscles because of the independent strides, but even at the very simplest level (let's say you never varied your stride at all) it appears to be working me out as well as any other elliptical machine, and that's the key thing, but offers a few features to make it more varied and fun.