If you're looking for a reliable treadmill for home use in the $1000 price range, I have some tips that will help. This review is my experience after purchasing the Freemotion 730 Treadmill.

My wife and I have been treadmill users for over 10 years now and we enjoy the convenience of a quick workout from home. We are both over 50 and consider ourselves in good shape. We workout between 4 to 6 times a week using incline, walk, and steady jogging programs with occasional short runs. Our workout times vary from 20 to 40 minutes at a time. Sometimes we will workout in the morning and do a second workout at night but on average it's about 30 minutes in the morning.

We owned a Proform treadmill that we purchased from Sears. It had 6 presets that worked well for us. It was pretty easy to use and did not have all the bells and whistles today's treadmills have. The only complaint we ever had about it was that the engine was a little noisy.

When the Proform finally gave out we immediately started shopping for the next treadmill in our price range. There is a lot to choose from and the pricing is competitive online or in stores. Because of their customer service and return policy, I decided to narrow our search to buying online from Costco. They hire a third party company to deliver and assemble. Several reviews I read commented on how difficult the treadmill was to assemble on their own. After watching two men complete the task I was glad I made the choice to have it assembled.

The Freemotion 730 Treadmill was delivered within the 3 week time frame that was estimated on the Costco site. They called us a day before arrival to schedule a time for delivery. I showed the assemblers were I wanted the treadmill and they began to bring it in a piece at a time. They were polite, neat, and careful about my home. Within 1 hour the treadmill was completely assembled.

The treadmill is 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. The Console is easy to read and use. Along with the spacious storage areas on each side the console also features a cooling fan, MP3 input, and speakers for your personal audio player. The treadmill features 30 onboard workouts - seven calorie, nine incline, seven intensity, and seven speed. Located at the top of the console is incline, calorie, time, distance, pulse, and speed monitors. Incline and Speed adjustments are one touch or incremental. The heart rate monitors work best when their kept clean for more of an accurate reading. The motor is noticeably powerful but quiet.

There is an option to sync and track your workouts online with a program called iFit Live. My treadmill came with a 1 year free membership. It is a great idea for calculating calories, storing workouts, community and more but after correctly hooking this up to my router and internet, the iFit Live program did not work and logging into there website for help it is stated they have "known issues".

Overall the treadmill might be more than we needed. I feel I am in pretty good shape but some of the preset workouts seem advanced. It definitely feels like a commercial grade treadmill. Take it slow and be careful to not over due it. After about a week of experimenting with the intensity that best fit my ability, a squeaking noise developed. It doesn't seem to be anything serious other than a little adjustment but it is annoying. There is a service number posted on the treadmill that I will call.

For the money this treadmill is worth checking out. Getting more features in this price range would be hard to find. I don't think I will be out growing this treadmill anytime soon.