Assembly: I am no stranger to wrenches and screwdrivers. I did the job solo (mostly). It took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to put this together. That includes unpacking, carrying the parts through the house (I had help with the heavy bit), reading through the instructions, watching the three min. assembly video, and cleanup.Tools: All the tools needed to put this together are included, but you might want to use better tools. Be advised you will need metric tools. The nuts are 13mm and 17mm. I have a 13mm socket, but no 17mm socket or wrench. Which is unfortunate as the 17mm nuts are used on the feet. I knew from other reviews I wanted to torque those nuts down to hold the feet securely in place as the machine was used. Doing that with the little wrench provided was uncomfortable.Size: Very compact for what it is. It tucks nicely out of the way into the corner of the bedroom.Noise: Whisper quiet. FWIW I have it on carpet. I've only been using it for two days, but so far no creaks or squeaks, truly impressive.User Interface: Pretty basic, which is fine. I'm not looking for someone screaming in my face, or mountain road cross training programs. I just need something I can conveniently work up a sweat on. This does the job. Get on it, start peddling, turn the big knob to add or reduce resistance, BOOM.But they get too cute with it trying to add functions that don't really work. CAL for instance, supposedly counts the calories you burn, but in fact only counts how many cycles you peddle. If it was counting calories it would count faster when you dialed up the resistance. Likewise, what does "speed" or "distance" mean on this machine? Both of which seem to be measured in "mph".The pulse counter seems to work, but takes several seconds to settle on a value.I have an issue with the phone/tablet holder. If you put your tablet on it, it blocks the display. It's also located a bit far from your eyes and too close to your body. You have to tilt your head down to see it. It would have been much better to have a little extension above the display to hold it there. I may try to make something like that.Stride: The first time I used this machine I was worried I made a bad choice. The stride is elliptical and not a perfect circle, but it's more circular than I'd like. Peddling on it has some up and down motion (as can be seen in the video with the pretty young and fit actors using it). This made it more work than I wanted even with the resistance dialed down. However, on my second try I found a rhythm and a stride that I could maintain which minimized the up and down motion. Also, peddling backwards significantly reduced the up and down, at least for me. However I would have really liked the pedals to have been mounted like 6 inches farther from the flywheel.Miscellaneous: On top of the flywheel, the plastic is discolored. It is not cracked or dented. It just looks like it was stressed. It appears that the plastic shell is mounted to a piece of metal and perhaps the full weight was supported at that point some time during shipping. Regardless, the machine operates smoothly and I don't believe it was damaged in any way. It doesn't concern me in the least.ETAAfter a year of use, I am still happy with it. The only thing is the LCD display has faded to where I can't read it without shining a light on it. No biggie for me, the only thing I was using it for was the timer and I can use my phone (which I always have for something to listen to while pedaling anyway). As stated above most of the display functions are bogus anyway, but if tracking your heart rate is important to you, it's something to think about.