The NordicTrack C2500 Treadmill - Lots of Features to Keep Your Interest in Fitness Up
Written: Mar 02 '08 (Updated Mar 19 '08)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Lots of workout options; ease of use; large, cushioned deck.
Cons: Fitness tracking data for one user only. Incline control works poorly.
The Bottom Line: The NordicTrack C2500 treadmill will meet the needs of many users. The lack of individual data recording for multiple users and poor incline control should make families consider other models.
|
|
|
| nc10's Full Review: NordicTrack C2500 Treadmill |
The NordicTrack C2500 Treadmill is one of the midrange models in NordicTrack’s line of treadmills. Its heavy duty enough to be suitable for users interested in both walking and jogging. Most treadmill reviews I’ve read indicate that if you want a treadmill suitable for jogging, you need to get a midrange model, models in the $800 and higher range, and several reviews have indicated that this widely available model is one of the better choices in that class.
As I’ve gotten older, its become more difficult to avoid gaining weight. Either I need to stop eating stuff that tastes good, or find a way to work more calorie burning activities in my life. I’ve used a treadmill off and on over the past few years, and fairly regularly over the past year. While some users say using a treadmill is boring, I like it. I’ve set up an old computer next to my treadmill, and hung a 20” widescreen monitor on the wall just in front of the the treadmill. I mostly watch DVD’s from Netflix while exercising. I find that DVD’s of TV shows work well, a 42 minute long episode of a 1 hour TV show is a good length for a treadmill workout. I use a media center remote to control the sound and movie as I use on the treadmill. Late last year I decided to upgrade to a heavier duty model designed for more continuous jogging, and one that also offered more “programming” options for ramping speeds and inclines. At that time I found that the first treadmill I owned started to slip a little as I used it more rigorously and more often. I tried adjusting the drive belt and the tread belt, tried lubricating the deck, and finally replaced the drive belt. I was somewhat successful in getting the old treadmill to work better, but I concluded that the treadmill which cost about $500 five years ago was more suited for walking that continuous jogging, and ultimately decided to upgrade. Our local Sears offered the NordicTrack C2500 for $975 last year, plus a $50 rebate plus a free floormat and one free workout card with extra treadmill workout programs. After reading a few reviews and evaluating its features, it seemed like a good choice, and I picked one up early December 2007.
I’ve used the C2500 almost daily over the past 3 months, and I can report that I’m partiallly satisfied with this treadmill. One of the features I appreciate most is the fitness journal, which tells me I’ve put about 370 miles on the treadmill, and burned about 67,000 calories. One of my big disappointments is the inability to create preprogrammed workouts. Another is that the incline controller is terrible, the model sets the selected incline correctly, but it slowly slips back down as you use it, even though the display shows the incline holding steady. If I want to use new programmed workouts I’ve got to buy them on sd cards from Nordictrack, or make speed and incline adjustments manually as I use the treadmill. I’d love to be able to preprogram a series of workouts inot the treadmill’s memory to build endurance and burn more calories on a more scheduled basis.
Key Features
- Speed variable up to 12 mph
- Incline variable from 0 to 12%
- 60” long, 20” wide deck (big enough for jogging)
- 325 lb weight capacity
- Adjustable Cushioning of the running deck
- Heart rate monitor
- 16 pregrammed workouts, competition games
- space saving foldup design
- iPod dock (I didn’t need this, but it seems like everything I look at has an iPod dock)
- fan
- fairly good monochrome LCD display
- Fitness tracker
- Ifit sd card slot for loading additional workouts
Setup
To get the best price on this treadmill at the time I purchased it, I had to order it online, and select “in store” pickup. This was not as trivial as it sounds, as the 220 lb box barely (JUST barely) fit into the back of my Ford Explorer. I got it home, moved it into my den with the help of a handtruck. NordicTrack recommends having two people set up the treadmill, which I also recommend, although I was able to put the unit together by myself. You won’t need any special tools or need to do any drilling, but there are a lot of bolts to tighten and some wiring to connect (with preinstalled connectors). An extra person would be helpful for the few steps that require you to hold parts in place while inserting and locking nuts onto bolts. It took me a little over two hours to put the unit together, and it started up without problems. The setup documention was pretty good, with clear text and pictures explaining each step.
The manual also contains complete parts lists and large diagrams showing each part, nice if I ever have to repair the unit. (Its likely you will need to perform some repairs, replacing belts every few years at least.) This Nordictrack treadmill is made by Icon Fitness, who also manufactures Proform, Healthrider, Weslo, Image, Epic and Reebok branded treadmills and many of the parts are common and readily available on ebay, as I found out when I had to make repairs to my old treadmill.
Using the C2500’s Features
As you spend more money on a treadmill, more features are packed into the console. While some are mostly window dressing, NordicTrack is also trying to make using the treadmill as interesting as possible, a laudable goal. The C2500 console has 2" X 6.5" black on blue monochrome LCD display that is big enough to display plenty of information, with good contrast that allows it to be read in any lighting.
Manual control options from the console are excellent. You can scroll treadmill speed (0.1mph increments) and incline (0.5% increments) up and down with push buttors, or select individual values from 1-10 using large buttons on either side of the display. These buttons make it easy to get to a target speed and incline quickly if you want to make a change during a workout.
There are 16 preprogrammed workouts which can be selected from the console. They vary from 20 to 45 minutes long. Assuming you weigh 185 lbs, you’ll burn between 250 and 600 calories when you complete one of these workouts. By default the C2500 assumes the user weighs 185 lbs when it calculates calories burned, but that number can be changed by the user. Once a workout program is started, the console changes speeds and inclines at intervals in blocks of 1 more minutes. Users can change the speed manually at any time, but the program resets every minute to the programmed speed and incline. If you want to increase a program’s difficulty by 10% by increasing the speed by 0.5 mph and increasing the incline by 0.5%, you have to bump those settings once every minute. And….adjusting the incline seems to cause the program to forget where its at, and instead it resets the incline to 0 rather than where its supposed to be. You can recover by manually setting the incline again, but this is really annoying if you’re 30 minutes into a 40 minute program.
When you scroll through the program selections, you see the complete minute by minute mph settings on display in the form of a bar graph. That makes it easy to scroll and select a program you feel like doing. And as you run each program, you see lots of other info on the display, including speed, distance, calories, incline, heart rate, and the MET (metabolic equivalent). A metabolic equivalent is an estimate of the ratio of a person's actual metabolic rate relative to the metabolic rate at rest. If your treadmill setting has your MET at 10, you’re burning calories 10 times as fast as you would at rest. The treadmill console also has a multicolored light meter, a line of LED’s running from left to right, to indicate the workout intensity at anytime.
- The console also has a two speed fan below the display. At the high speed it helps enough that you’ll always keep it turned on, but most users will wish for more air. At the low speed the fan is pretty much useless.
- The are heart rate sensors built into two handgrips on the bottom front edge of the display. The numbers I see mostly look right, but they bounce around a good bit. If you want to believe the numbers, you need to get several readings and throw out the obviously wrong ones to see where you are at.
- The console has a secure digital (sd) flash card slot. You can buy extra workout sd cards from Nordictrack. Each contains 24 more workout programs. Cards with workouts with 3 different intensity levels are available. I have a level 2 card, which has extra workouts in the 500-900 calorie range, 30-45 minutes long, mostly more difficult than the workouts preprogrammed into the treadmill. The sd workouts have a narrator that offers a few explanations along the way, which you hear over the treadmill’s speakers. The treadmill also has a 1/8” audiojack and ipod connector (w/universal ipod adapter) so that you can listen to your mp3 player over the low fidelity (mediocre, but clear) speakers.
- The console has two large cup holders and a storage area along the top edge to hold pens, mp3 players, etc.
- Like all treadmills I've seen, this one has a magnetic switch on the console. The C2500 comes with a cord that has a magnet on one end, and a clip on the other. The magnet attaches to the treadmill to turn it on. The clip hooks to your clothing. Slip or fall, and the magnet pulls off of the treadmill to turn it off. In practice, I’ve accidentally reached to grap a towel hanging from the handgrip a few times and brushed the magnet off the switch, shutting down the treadmill. Really annoying, since you lose your place on whatever workout program you were on.
- The console also saves your data in the treadmills’ memory, on a day by day basis. I can go back and look at how many calories I burned or how long I ran on any previous day, week or month. Unfortunately, the treadmill only saves one set of data, so if two people use the treadmill, the data is lumped together, making the data worthless. Some families will find the lack of individual data storage a serious disappointment, though it is not a problem for me, since I am the only one using the treadmill.
- The console also offers a competition workout. The display shows a racetrack with one or several runners. You run on the treadmill against those runners, adjusting the speed of the belt to set your running speed. The console offers you a choice of several workouts and runners of different abilities to compete against.
Using the treadmill and other comments
Like most home treadmills, the C2500 folds up when not in use (space saver design). The running deck swings up towards the console and locks in place. There is a single spring assist shock arm to make raising and lowering the deck easier. Even if you let go of the deck early, it will ease into place on the floor thanks to the shock. The treadmill also has two wheels under the the frame, so that you can tilt the complete assembly and roll it to a different location in your home. Definitely not something you want to do daily, but something one person can handle.
The running deck is 20” wide and 60” long, long enough for serious joggers, but perhaps not for serious runners. NordicTrack claims the 3/4" thick deck is adequate for users weighing up to 325 lbs. The deck also includes a feature called DuraSoft V Adjustable Cushioning. The deck cushioning can be adjusted in 5 increments (by moving sliders on either side of the deck), which NordicTrack claims will reduce the impact on your joints from 19 to 33%, when compared to running on a hard surface. I don’t know about the percentages, but running on the treadmill is a lot easier on my knees than running on the street, a fact I quickly notice each time I run on the sidewalk or street. This cushioning is one of the biggest selling points for using a treadmill, I believe.
So far, I’ve not see any indication that the treadmill speed slips, though I usually keep the speed between 4.5 and 6 mph. I do see a build up of dust around the front of the treadbelt, on the housing where the drive and incline motors are housed. I believe this is from wear on the drive belt inside the treadmill’s drive and incline motor housing. I expect I’ll need to replace that drive belt in a couple of years. The tread belt still appears to be in great shape, and shows no sign of wear after 370 miles of use.
The C2500 has a lifetime motor and frame warranty, and a 1 year parts and labor warranty on everything else. What you worry about most is the deck and the console electronics, making the Nordictrack 1 year warranty a disappointment. The treadmill seems to be solidly built from quality parts, so I have hopes I won't miss having the longer warranty.
So far, my experience with customer support has been fair. The sd workout card I got with my treadmill stopped working last week. I emailed Nordictrack, and got a quick response offering to replace the card. I sent in my address, and have been told the new card is on the way. They've tried to help with the incline control, but its still not right.
If the C2500 offered individual fitness data storage for multiple users, a way to easily create your own preprogrammed workouts offline, good incline control and a longer warranty, it would be a terrific value and deserve a 5 star rating. As is, I consider this a barely average model. Its worth consideration, and it is widely available at Sears and other stores. But at least consider other models before making a purchase.
Other sources of information:
http://www.nordictrack.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product2_12401_10301_48451_-1_19051
http://www.treadmilldoctor.com/
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.