AFG 7.3AE Elliptical

Just bought the elliptical and finished assembling it. Toughest part was fishing some of the cables through. All the parts were clearly identified. The machine itself is incredibly quiet and very smooth (and I'm a big guy 6"2 250+). Looking forward to playing around with the touchscreen. It is considerably more expensive than the last one I bought but definetaly worth the money.

We did have to get a new part that v Canadian tire just opened another box and gave it to use. Other than that set up was good Super quite - small fan but not

We purchased this 2 months ago. One part was missing, a bearing that was held in place during shipping with a zip tie strap. It was nowhere to be found for one of the arms. I contacted the warranty number and spoke to someone right away who was very helpful. I give them 5 stars for their customer service. The piece arrived about 7-10 days later and I was able to finish putting it together to finally try it out. It started off fine, but the more I used it the more of a clunking sound I got with it. I describe it as riding a bike down a sidewalk with huge cracks in it. You could hear it and feel it in both feet and arms every turn of the wheel. It got worse and worse over the last month. I called the company again, who were amazing to deal with, and went through some trouble shooting with them. They determined some parts needed changing and would send out the parts and schedule a service tech to come fix it. Unfortunately, they then realized we have no tech in our area (Northwest BC). They were going to have another one ordered for us and we could exchange at the store we purchased it at. At that point the thought of putting this one in the truck (it is extremely heavy), driving it to the store we purchased it at, exchanging for a new one, and then putting a new one together again was something I was not willing to do. I have decided to return it and get my money back if I am going to have to get it to the store anyways. Just too many negative reviews and others having issues with this machine to risk possibly going through all this again with a new machine. As far as the programs, the one thing I found really annoying was that every program seemed to have a 4 minute warmup before the program actually started. There didn't seem to be a way of skipping this. By the time I get on my elliptical I am usually warmed up already and just want to start a program. I could do a manual workout to avoid this, but I preferred the programs that changed resistance/incline on their own. I took a chance on this machine after reading all the reviews on here hoping that I would get one with no issues. No such luck :(

I purchased the 7.3AE on sale (a great deal!) two months ago. I waited until now to post a review so I could get some use out of it and allow it to break in. I set up the unit in my basement so moving the very heavy box down the stairs was out of the question. I opened the box in my garage and carried the parts downstairs instead. Assembly was straight forward and took about 1.5 hours. Anyone with basic mechanical skills can easily assemble it. Two people are needed only when installing the screen. One of my concerns was headroom - I have 86" of headroom in my basement. One of the nice things about this unit is the relatively low step-up height. I'm 6' tall and even at the maxiumum incline I still have clearance between my head and the ceiling. After the first couple of uses the unit started making a "knocking" sound from the right side. The noise wouldn't start immediately, usually after about 5 minutes. I disassembled the right side foot platform, re-greased the bearings and reassembled. I also check the rest of the screws for tightness. That solved the problem and since then the unit has been whisper quiet with only the occasional knocking sound. It's so quiet that I can have a conversation without raising my voice at all. I watch TV while working out and don't have to raise the volume above normal levels. The built in speakers sound pretty good. They don't get too loud, but this machine is so quiet that they are more than adequate. Fit and finish is excellent. This is a very nice looking machine. The parts went together perfectly and all stickers/decals are on square and secure. The unit is heavy and therefore stable. There is very little rocking during use. I have it set up on a rubber exercise mat which in turn sits on carpet. If it was resting directly on concrete or some other hard surface I doubt it would rock at all. This unit offers wireless heart rate monitoring via the included chest strap. I use a strap with my bike so was familiar with this - it works flawlessly. The hand grips also provide monitoring but take 10-15 seconds before a reading is displayed. The next model down - the 5.3AE - does not offer wireless monitoring which is the main reason I went with the 7.3AE. The touch screen is small but provides all key information at a glance. It's generally easy to use, but this is where I have a few complaints. The interface seems a bit dated and is not well designed. Because the touch screen is small the on-screen buttons are also small and, in some cases, too close to each other. A good example is the "Fan" and "Cool Down" buttons. One controls the fan speed, one ends the workout and goes into cool down mode. The buttons are side by side and it's very easy to hit the "Cool Down" button when trying to adjust the fan speed, which ends your workout. Not the end of the world, but an annoyance for sure. There are only 8 programs as well, so if are looking for a lot of pre-programmed variety you might find this unit lacking. Also, during the workout there is a progress bar that indicates where you are in the workout. However, there is no visual indicator unless you set the incline at anything above 0. Then a small red line will appear and will move across the screen showing your progress. These are small annoyances that could probably be corrected with a firmware upgrade, which this unit is capable of. This unit comes with an excellent warranty (5 years) - much better than any other elliptical I looked at. This was also a major factor in my purchase decision. All in all I am very pleased with this unit and would not hesitate to recommend it, but only when it's on sale. If you'd like more program options, don't care about the touch screen or wireless heart rate monitoring then the 5.3AE unit may suit you. It's the exact same unit with a different screen and heart rate monitoring through the hand grips only. Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase. I only give it 4 stars because of the touch-screen interface issues.

The elliptical wasn't difficult to assemble. The hardware is packaged with numbers matching the steps in the instructions. Took me a couple hours by myself. The only real challenge was fishing the wires through the mast to the control console. However, after the elliptical was assembled there were problems right away. A thumping sound could be heard and felt coming from the fly wheel enclosure and the runner wheel on the left peddle started wearing right away. Every time I used the elliptical, there was dust on the rail. I initially thought the resistance was very stiff, but later realized the resistance level on shown on the display was reversed (when I increased the resistance on the controls, the actual resistance went down). When I kept trying to lower the resistance level to a reasonable level, it actually made it harder. The service was actually fairly responsive. They sent parts in a reasonable time and the service tech was available shortly after. It would have made more sense for the service tech to come and diagnose the problem first then ship parts. Instead they shipped some parts based on what I told them over the phone, then the service tech came and determined they weren't the right parts. So they had to ship more parts and I had to arrange another service appointment after the second set of parts arrived. Two service calls and a month later, the manufacturer authorized the return. I didn't have to push too hard, which makes me think that they must be having difficulty fixing these issues with service calls. The elliptical has lots of features which, with the exception of the resistance settings, worked well. The wireless heart rate monitor worked well. I liked the display and variety of programs and the ability to save different user profiles. However, not much of that matters when the heart of the unit, the fly wheel, isn't sound. We choose this unit because of the features and the warranty, but in the end it wasn't what I expected out of a higher priced machine.