I have a TRUE, and it works great. It only goes up to 10mph, but it has a 15% grade. I have found that 10mph is plenty fast indoors, though it seems slow. It is durable, and I have had no problems for 3 years with it.

I have had a Precor for the past few years and it works great. It is an entry-level Precor and only goes to 10mph. My wife uses it most of the time (since I will run outside regardless of the weather ... I live in Canada) but the odd time when she's off working and I have to watch the children or injury strikes I do run on it and it is fine.

I bought a Life Fitness 3 years ago and it is still running fine. Some friends have a Tru and love it. Problem is, mine was about $2500 and they paid over $3000 for the Tru. I think the base price for a good treadmill is around $2000 these days, so you may be better off waiting for a year and saving up for the higher quality machine. Besides, winter is almost over (this weeks horizontal snow and below 0 temperature aside), and you will want to run outside anyway.

I toss in my vote for the True 540. Expensive? yep.

I have a lifetime warranty on every part (motor, frame, belt, you name it). After 5 years however I will be paying for labor. I still think I'm coming out a head over, maybe, 20 years of use. Especially since my wife doesn't run outside when it's cold, and she prefers not to when it's dark. It gets fair amount of abuse so the warranty is nice.


As I re-read the post. This is not at all what the gentlemen asked for. Whoops. But for anyone else considering a treadmill around this price range, I think the true can't be beat.

I have a Reebok (Made by Icon Fitness which also makes Nordic Track, Healthrider, Pro Form and Image). I have had it for about a year and I really have only one complaint - the minimum grade is 1.5% instead of 0%. Other than that, I think it was a fine choice for the money (paid $1000, marked down from $1699 at Oshmans.com). It has a 10% max grade and 12Mph max speed, a sixty inch long running surface and I think it is 22 inches wide. It has more bounce in it than the True treadmill I use at the gym, but that's OK I suppose - just takes a little getting used to.

This treadmill, like all the Icon fitness treadmills, works with their iFit system. Basically you can download workouts from the Internet, buy them on CD or build them with a tool called i2Workout. I programmed all of my indoor workouts, put them to the music of my choice, and converted them to MP3. Now I just select the track that I want and go for it - don't have to use their basic workouts, or remind myself to increase speed or incline. I would be hard pressed to buy another treadmill that didn't have similar functionality - it is really that useful.