A home fitness game-changer: Xterra TR4500 Folding Treadmill Review

Keeping fit at home has never made more sense or been more achievable, and a treadmill is a staple among the best home gym equipment. It can lend you a serious advantage when it comes to staying active and hitting your fitness goals from the comfort of your own home. The Xterra TR4500 looks to deliver on these benefits, and I've had the pleasure of testing one to find out.

This is a home folding treadmill with seemingly a lot to say for itself. At sub-£1000, it’s tough to find a home treadmill that’s even close in quality to a commercial-grade unit. However, Xterra has worked overtime to narrow that margin, bringing you the TR4500.

It’s equipped with a hefty 3.25HP motor, which powers a wide running platform that can tilt for 15 levels of incline. There's a 7.5-inch LCD display, which is one of first things that jumps out, and this console capably displays time, incline, distance, calories, program, pulse, speed, and pace.

On top of the typical treadmill features like cup holders, accessory tray, cooling fan, and pulse tracker, the Xterra TR4500 offers built-in Bluetooth, 34 diverse exercise programmes, folding lift assist, and more.

Verdict: The Xterra TR4500 is a highly tempting choice of home treadmill. A 160kg user capacity means it’s about as sturdy as you can get, and that reliable 3.25HP motor produces the kind of performance you’d expect from an elite commercial unit. Yes, there’re some subjective design choices that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but the TR4500 still brings more than enough to the table – all for a really reasonable price.

What's to love?

I was pleased to discover that the Xterra TR4500 ticked plenty of boxes within the home treadmill criteria, starting with liveability. The TR4500 is a treadmill with some real heft, there was no escaping that from the minute I began assembly. That’s why I was so shocked as to how easily it fit into the household, without sticking out like a sore thumb. Folding the TR4500 is no hassle at all, the running bed is on an air suspension, so folding it up takes minimal effort - and dropping it down requires even less. As far as great folding treadmills are concerned, the Xterra TR4500 is off to a vibrant start.

The ride is smooth and blissfully quiet. I'm in a work-from-home household and neither running nor walking on the TR4500 disrupted the tranquillity. It did have to be broken in a little bit, so the first few runs were a little squeaky, but this is standard procedure for most home treadmills across the board, as the running bed always needs time to set into the floor.

It isn’t just smooth and silent either, it’s marvellously robust too. It feels well-built, and so it should considering it claims to sustain a maximum user weight of 160kg. One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to running machines is when your water bottle rattles in the cup holder every time you take a step, this can often be a sign of a poor build or design. The TR4500 passes the test here, offering two stable cup holders and an additional accessory tray that makes no motion noise whatsoever.

Usability and ease-of-use go hand in hand with this Xterra treadmill. I could manually set up a journey in well under a minute, or I had the pick of 34 original programmes that were even quicker to fire up. This seamless get-on-and-go experience lends itself to the simple and direct LCD display, it might not be for everyone aesthetically (I'll come back to this later), but it makes the treadmill absolutely effortless to engage with. It's also a big help that the TR4500 is extremely responsive, I never experienced any input delay when navigating programmes and settings. Firing up the treadmill was instant as well, there was no wait for the system to initialise, even if it had been previously switched off at the mains.

The Xterra TR4500 currently has a £999 price tag attached, which by today’s standards does just about lands you in the parameters of a budget home treadmill. There’s real value here, especially when you consider what you’re getting for your money. It's rare to find a home treadmill that can support a maximum user capacity of anything over 120kg. The one’s that do typically start to resemble commercial-grade units which aren’t as suited for home use, and are usually priced in the thousands. All in all, the TR4500 is a real a gem in that sense.

Let's say you don’t weigh anywhere near 160kg, so, why would having such a high capacity matter? Well, in order to facilitate users of that top end maximum weight, the treadmill requires a more powerful motor and a more long lasting build. Both of these elements contribute to a smoother, quieter, and more stable ride too. In other words, a more capable motor and a frame and running bed that’ve been designed to facilitate heavier loads are going to last you in the long run too.

What might be divisive?

The TR4500 has an abundance of strengths that’ll please the wide majority, but there are some details that could cause a split in the crowd. For starters, this treadmill has quite a low frame if you’re someone six-foot-tall or over. On most treadmills, you can hold the side bars or the top of the console. I’m personally in that height range and there was no chance that I’d be able to hold onto the top of the console without completely hunching over, despite the console's considerable width.

Of course, for some users this’ll be a drawback, especially if it doesn’t feel natural holding onto the side bars. For others though, this might encourage a more disciplined ride. Holding onto the side bars or the top of a treadmill can make it easier, especially if you end up transferring some of your body weight when it gets difficult. Eliminating this option forced me to always keep my arms by my sides, even if I did want to hold the side bars, they were still a little too low for me.

Secondly, I can see the LCD display being a total hit for some, while others might be underwhelmed. Over time, it grew on me quite a bit. It's a simple display with a very retro, digital look to it, nothing fancy but not totally archaic either. You won't find any multimedia tech or touch screen in there, but it does work exactly how it should. Those seeking a more modern display won’t find one here, but anyone (like myself) who perfers the simpler things that focus on the fundamentals should get along with it just fine.

Any big drawbacks?

Built-in treadmill fans have never been anything to rave about at the best of times, but the one in the Xterra TR4500 is especially poor. It only has one level of intensity, and I can’t say I could ever feel it without sticking my face directly in front of it (posture police wouldn't like that one). If you desperately need a good circulation of air while you’re on the treadmill, the TR4500 won’t be able to provide it. I’d either suggest making your own arrangements (I personally use a portable fan), or looking for a unit with a better fan system.

Another obstacle I faced quite early on was the TR4500’s height, especially at a high incline. The treadmill was located in my front room, so I was able to watch new TV shows that I otherwise wouldn’t ever get around to watching. However, I did run into an issue regarding viewing angle. The TR4500 elevates rather high, and my view was initially obstructed by our ceiling lamp shades. To somewhat remedy this I’ve since unscrewed the shades and bulbs, I now have an unrestricted view but at the mercy of my front room lighting.

On the topic of treadmill height, if I was much taller, I might’ve actually been at risk of banging my head on the celling when running. Of course, this will depend on your ceiling height, but what I can say is my ceiling isn’t particularly lower than average.

More items to consider:

How the product was tested

I tested the Xterra TR4500 over the period of a month, measuring from the day it arrived and building the treadmill, to the testing period. I exercised on it almost every single day, using it to varying degrees of intensity. Some days I would just incline walk, others I would intermittently run and jog.

Ultimately, I knew I had to test the 4500 over an extended period of time for a few reasons. One was in order to allow the treadmill bed to set fully, this way I could make a fair judgement on the smoothness of ride, and how robust and quiet it actually was. Secondly, the Xterra TR4500 comes with a generous number of features and programmes to run through, so I had to see everything that was on offer in as much detail as possible.

Jack Barrell is a Tech and Fitness Writer and Reviewer for What’s the Best. He is invested in the entertainment space and also keeps well in the loop with the latest sports and exercise trends too. On his off days, Jack can usually be found either in the gym – or watching his favourite Star Wars for the thousandth time.

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