Best Treadmill for $800 - Proform 985 Audio Trainer Treadmill

by Natalie
(Norris, TN)

I have only used this machine for three days but am very happy with it. One thing which surprised me the first time I turned it on was that the treadmill inclined itself all the way up and back down. My husband said it was probably its way of calibrating the deck incline before use.

The things which persuaded me to purchase this machine over others at the same price were: great warranty, shock assist to help lift and lower the running deck for folding, 3.5 HP and 350 lb weight limit. (I previously decided on a Nordic Track treadmill, but could not lift the deck because it was much heavier and did not have shock assist.)

Bonus features were the console layout, 16 preset programs, a free iFit card, and intensity control.
NOTE: THE VOLUME ON THIS MACHINE CAN BE ADJUSTED OR CAN EVEN BE MUTED. This is done in the Information Mode. (See end for instructions.)

During preset workouts, the upper display shows your progress, with one column displayed for each minute to be worked, and the height of the column giving you an idea of the speed for each segment. (Future changes in Incline are not displayed prior to beginning the workout.)

During manual workouts, this display shows a track that represents 1/4 mile and shows your progress on that track. The standard data on the lower display is Calories, Incline, Speed, and Time (elapsed time for manual workouts; remaining time for preset workouts). By pressing the Display button, you can change Time to Distance, and Speed to Pace.

All 16 preset workouts are 30 minutes. There are 24 workouts on the iFit card. The first few of those are 20 minutes then the rest are 30 minutes. When a preset is chosen, the display flashes the maximum incline and speed of the workout. The intensity adjustment buttons will change both the incline and speed on any of the 16 preset workouts prior to or during the workout.

An example is workout #4 which has a max incline of 8 and speed of 3.5: pressing Intensity Up results in a max incline of 10 and speed of 4.4; pressing Intensity Down will result in max incline of 6.5 and speed 3.0. You may press Intensity Up or Down again to continue to change incline and speed of the workout. Note: Thus, you can get an unlimited number of workouts by adjusting the 16 preset ones. Intensity adjustment does not work on iFit workouts. During preset and iFit workouts, the display will flash the new incline and speed 3 seconds before they are changed. If you manually change the speed or incline during a workout, it will maintain that setting until the next scheduled change.

The fan is nice, but I'm 5'2" and it hits me in the neck. It has 3 speeds: High, Low, and Auto, which adjusts based on speed of workout. I use a larger floor fan with it. The size and shape of the side handrails make them easy to grip.

The only thing this machine can't do is create your own custom workout. So far, the only thing that I have found that is not very convenient is that in order to choose a preset workout, you have to scroll through the 8 on the right or the 8 on the left, and cannot go straight to the one you want. Also, you must press pretty hard on the buttons. Pulse sensor on hand grip is not accurate - I have not tried the chest strap sensor.

My husband, who is handy with tools, assembled the machine almost single-handedly in about two hours. I helped hold a couple of things. He said the instructions were pretty clear.

Information Mode is accessed by holding down the Stop button, then inserting the key. The volume is adjusted by hitting the Incline Increase button, to change the volume (bottom left number in display) up to 10, then back to 1. If the volume is set at 1, ALL sounds on the machine are muted, including the instructor voice on iFit workouts. If the volume is set at anything other than 1, you will hear the machine ding each time you press a button, and it will ding during workouts as each segment is reached.

My machine was in demo mode when I received it, so I also had to go to Info mode to cancel that. One additional option in info mode controls the amount of coaching heard on the iFit card. After making changes in Info mode, just remove the key to save the changes.