Received my E-35 in less than a week even using the Amazon free shipping via ABF Freight. No damage during shipping, good on ABF. I was able to move the trainer into the house and to the room where it be would used by myself, but I wish I had help at the time. Assembly was fairly easy and Sole organized the hardware according to the steps in assembly. The first time I had ever experienced that and I usually have to assemble everything I purchase. Did my first workout shortly after assembly, and it worked as described. I did utilize a light coat of the lube on the rail assemble which quieted some scraping noise.The instructions
do not tell you where to use the lube, but you can go to the Sole website and find the maintenance section which mentions lubing the rails and keeping them clean. I also used some removeable locktite (blue color) on all the bolts just in case. The machine feels solid and relatively quiet with not a lot of excess buttons on the control panel. I'm in my fifties and heavy, and this trainer really gives me a workout. At this point, I extremely pleased with this purchase, and as usual, Amazon who has not disappointed me to date.

The elliptical was delivered to my garage because they wouldn't bring it up the stairs into my house. I opened the box and took the parts inside. The main part of the elliptical contains the flywheel and was quite heavy. I wouldn't have been able to get it into my house without some help. Assembly wasn't too hard, although I had one problem. When assembling the front column I accidently dropped a bolt into the flywheel assembly. The only way to get it out would have been to try to turn the elliptical upside down. Since the dropped bolt wasn't preventing the elliptical from working correctly, I ended up going to the hardware store to get another bolt. I was careful to tighten all the bolts as much as I could, and the elliptical turned out to be pretty quiet. It also seems very sturdy and I think it will last a long time. It ended up being bigger than I expected from the picture. My wife and I have been using it daily for over a month and we think it is great. There was one source of confusion. It comes with a tube of lube, but nothing in the instructions explains what to do with it. After using it for about a month I noticed it was making more noise than it had before. I was able to figure out that the lube goes on the tracks where the wheels slide, and that fixed the noise problem.

This elliptical gives an intense workout and is extremely low impact. After looking around at different ellipticals, I was impressed with the sturdiness, warranty, and customer reviews about the Sole brand.
It is a little tricky to put together and weighs over 130 lbs. so you might consider having it moved and put together for you. My husband was able to put it together in about 1 1/2 hours. I also recommend that you put it in the basement because it is so heavy and use Locktite for bolts when putting together.
I have only had it for a few weeks, but am enjoying working out more than I ever have.

5/20/08: The machine is good. After a few months of daily use (my husband and I both use it) it started to vibrate. We tried everything they suggested (lube, tightning screws, etc), called them back, they said they were going to order a part (without even diagnosing the machine). We called again today, and the part is backordered, then will be shipped to them, at which point they will ship to us. THEN we call and get someone out to look at it. This all seems backwards to me. We don't even know if this part will fix the elliptical. We have been unable to work out now for two weeks; about to be three. I will update this review once the issue is resolved. Machine is good if it doesn't break, however.

5/27/08 update: The tech came out today. The part they ordered IS NOT the part that broke. They have to order more parts. We have to wait another 5 - 10 business days for those to come in, then go through this process again. This will be 4 - 5 weeks of no working out. The machine is good. It's the efficiency of the customer service that is poor.

6/5/08 update: The tech is coming back out on Friday to fix it. So Sole doesn't actually do the repairs; it's a local vendor that they contract with. So all of this is really Fitness of North Texas' fault, but Sole should manage them better. We called Sole yesterday and they said the part had been received by Fitness of North Texas the day before. We called Fitness of N Tx, they denied having the part, then lied about when they got it, then finally said the earliest they could come out was Friday (tomorrow). Who knows when they would have called us to let us know the part was in if we hadn't called them.

In summary... Sole's great, the machine's great, just hope that if it breaks, you get a good local vendor to fix it.

My wife and I bought this to replace our recently deceased treadmill, and after almost a month of us both using it daily, we have not been disappointed.

The good:
-Quiet! -- especially in comparison to the treadmill
-Good exercise -- both my wife and I think it's better than just the treadmill
-20" stride
-Relatively heavy-duty construction

The bad:
-Much heavier and awkward in the box than seems possible
-We're still tracking down a couple of minor squeaks (you get good a disassembling a joint, oiling it and reassembling it quickly)
-The speakers do not turn off, even when in "sleep mode" (why can't these things just come with a power switch?) -- we have it on a surge protector just for the switch
-The display is kind of small, and while it displays three different metrics at the same time, they never seem to be the three that you want

The potentially relevant to others:
-I'm ~6'4", my wife is ~5'6" and the stride length isn't too uncomfortable for either of us
-With standard 8' ceilings, I still have at least 6" of head clearance, at the highest point of travel, with shoes on
-Use your own tools for the construction -- borrow a socket wrench, especially, if you don't own one