Kettler Favorit Rowing Machine

The Kettler Favorit piston rowing machine is very good for someone who wants to use rowing as an aerobic exercise. It was fairly easy to assemble via its clear pictures although most of the written instructions are in German. It is very well made with heavy duty parts and hardware. The difference from most other piston rowing machines is that the handles can rotate in and out making the action much closer to actual rowing than other, similar machines. It is fairly compact and although heavy, can be stored vertically on end as to take up little space.

It has a fairly intricate meter on the front that monitors many different aspects of your exercise. There is a small clip that attaches to the earlobe and another that senses the movable seat. Between these two sensors and the internal clock, it provides five different measures of the excercise including the number of "pulls" per minute, the time of exercise, the amount of joules expended, the number of "pulls" and the heart rate. Afterwards, there is another function that measures your cardiac fitness and grades you. My only criticism is the difficulty in reading some of these metrics on the screen and the fact that while it can count down the time remaining, there is no audible alarm to provide an alert as to when the time of exercise has ended.

All in all, the Kettler Favorit is a well made exercise machine. Although it costs more than most of its competitors in this style machine, the adage "you get what you pay for" seems to apply.

This is a far cry from the flimsy rowing machine of my collge days. It assembled easily, it is solid as a rock, and I would buy it again. No regrets. Adjusting the tension just isn't as difficult as people have made it out to be. Again, quality piece of equip.!

I admit I didn't want to spend a lot for a rowing machine, so the Kettler Favorit seemed a good compromise. Shipment was free and item arrived quickly and in perfect condition. The Kettler Favorit is built of high quality, well-designed, sleek machinery (German-made after all). It's solid and quiet.

The instructions are written in several languages; just seek out yours. If you can't find your language, you aren't looking close enough.

For the price, this is a very nice machine. As to the alleged cumbersome adjustment of the rowing bars (seen in other reviews), I disagree. The trick is to slowly pull the bars toward you/back of the machine to an upright position before raising or lowering the clamps. Don't attempt to adjust the clamps when the rowing bars are parallel with to the ground. I'm not unusually strong and found the clamps easy to slide up or down as long as the bars are upright. Once the clamps are tightened, they stay in place.

Pulse ear clip: This is the only flaw to the design (in my opinion). it's just not practical and won't stay put. I didn't plan to use the clip to monitor my pulse, but for anyone who does, you may be disappointed.

If you want a perfect rowing machine, spend much more money. Otherwise, this is a fine machine for the price. I've no complaints.

This rowing machine was fairly easy to assemble, however picturing the exact size of screws, nuts, bolts, etc. would be very helpful. The reason for 3 stars is the computer unit's lack of functionality. The directions for use are horrible and confusing. We still have not been able to get it to work properly. I emailed Kettler and they responded within 2-3 days. Unfortunately, their response was of no help. They said the computer unit automatically begins working when rowing begins and offered no other assistance. Numbers do appear at times, but the information displayed is inconsistent. The display doesn't automatically come on all the time, and the methods for using the unit's control buttons are not explained anywhere (including Kettler's email). Again, the rowing maching works great, but the computer stinks.

Had no problem putting it together and have found no problem with the tightness of tension adjusting on the "oars" mentioned by previous reviewer - if anything they are very hard to release to slide up or down. So if sharing this machine with a different build quick adjustment day-to-day would be hard as you have to pry the plastic apart with a screwdriver.
However still a vast improvement on my previous machine of 20 years.
Shipping was a problem as the cardboard box and packing not heavy enough for the usual drop off but it survived even that!