Cubii Pro Under Desk Elliptical, Chrome (Open Box)

I was excited to get this as a special from Woot which was about a hundred bucks cheaper than its regular price. It was super easy to assemble and to get started. It wasn't terribly hard to get the app paired up. Though the app is a little primitive and pokey (especially when switching regions), I enjoyed looking at all the people in my city, state, worldwide, etc. peddling alongside me. Big props to Cubii for some cool app features that are really enjoyable for number nerds like me. Also, I read a lot of comments complaining about how heavy it is. It's pretty well balanced and the handle is intelligently designed, making it pretty easy to move around in my opinion.But there were a few things I didn't like. The main issue was that there was almost a laughable amount of resistance even at the highest level. For reference I'm a 5'11 guy, overweight (around 215 pounds), and very out of shape. Even then, I could cycle forever at 90rpm on level 6 (two below the max) and at the highest level the only difference would be that I would pedal a bit slower. I'm not particularly strong. My 11-year-old daughter, all 80 pounds of her, had no problems cycling for 10 minutes at the highest level and didn't break a sweat (though full disclaimer she's a lot more fit than me).In addition, the app which was one of the coolest selling points was also one of the most frustrating. Sometimes it would record pedals, sometimes it wouldn't. I found myself correcting the steps on my fitbit and at that point I was like, ah, why bother, the point is I'm moving right? It would also transform my pedals to steps in some arbitrary conversion that I found nonsensical (100 pedals at level 1? 50 steps, 100 pedals at level 8? 50 steps).There are a bunch of comments about how silly it is that this thing has to charge with a cable, and how hard the cable hole is to find. This is all true. Honestly it's not a deal breaker if it really lasted 90 days -- every three months you climb under your desk and put in the charger. But I charged it the first night and a week later it was out of batteries. It was just one more thing -- and let's be honest, if I wasn't a lazy person I wouldn't be getting an under the desk elliptical.In just over a week the cycle started squeaking. Not all the time, but once in a while screeee screeee.. Not sure what it was, I never diagnosed it. I read up on alternatives, packed the Cubii up, and ordered the Deskcycle Ellipse.In comparison I found that the Ellipse had a bigger range (i.e. you could put your feet in more positions: much bigger feet motions further away from your body on the pedal, and shorter motions nearer to you on the pedal). This range seemed much larger than the Cubii -- and it lets me pedal for longer because when I feel certain muscles getting fatigued I can switch my step location and exercise slightly different muscles. The Deskcycle also seemed closer to the ground when pedaling so while I was getting 1-2 inches of clearance on the Cubii I can get what seems to be an extra 2 inches or so with the Ellipse. The downside is that because of the way the Ellipse is designed, with at least my setup where my under-desk-elliptical is braced against the back of the wall, the frontal clearance isn't as good with the Ellipse as it is with the Cubii, so I have to position my chair strategically to get closer to my table. Also, the Ellipse is significantly heavier, and it's more inconvenient to move from room to room because you have to lock the steps in place with the little "buttons" (good design though). Another drawback of the Ellipse is that you have to manually enter the steps from the counter, but the counter works *great* and the website is super easy to use and also syncs with Fitbit (I am, however, also dubious about their step conversions, in the opposite direction though-- it seems to overestimate steps). Final Ellipse drawback-- the pedals have these little bumps on them, whereas the Cubii has a light grating, so the Ellipse is less comfortable barefooted (I know we are supposed to wear shoes but, see above, I'm lazy). I could see this driving some folks crazy but I've acclimated. Final, and biggest advantage of the Deskcycle Ellipse: it has a lot more resistance at the highest level-- so much so that I'm currently at a 4 out of 8 and it's quite a bit harder than 6 out of 8 on the Cubii.