Horizon Fitness Treo T101 Treadmill Review

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Horizon Fitness which manufactures treadmills is a brand owned by Johnson Health Tech, and they have been manufacturing home fitness equipment for over 25 years.  Among other things, their treadmills are reputed for low noise levels, good shock absorption, low prices and unbeatable warranties.

The T101 treadmill is 165 cm long, 66 cm wide, 127 cm tall, weighs only 49 kg, and is black & grey in colour.  The surface of the belt is 120 x 40 cm.

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In addition to being one of the lightest treadmills which I have ever come across, it has 2 wheels at the back of its folded frame, which make it easy to move around as needed.

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The interface is clean and simple.  The LCD screen offers information regarding speed, distance, time, heart rate and calories burned.  The detachable red key is attached to the security string, and automatically stops the treadmill if pulled off, which is useful in the event of an emergency.  There are 12 programmes to select from and 2 bottle holders.

There is an on/off switch at the base of the frame to the front of the treadmill.  I find this handy as it saves me having to unplug it when not in use (although Horizon does recommend that it still be unplugged when not in use).

Once the key has been put in place, one has the option to switch the treadmill on either from the front interface, or using the controls on the left hand rail.

The speed can be adjusted from 1 to 16 km/h, either on the front interface or the right hand rail.

There are 3 manual incline positions, ranging from 0 to 6%.

Maximum user weight is 110 kg (242 lbs).  

Price varies, but it is a low budget treadmill.  I've seen it for 449€, and even as low as 249,99€ on a website which claims that it is on sale with a 75% discount.

My overall impression of this treadmill is that it is a good piece of home fitness equipment for those who are not too overweight and want to walk or run on a flat surface.  The 12 programmes offer a variety of cardiovascular workouts.  However, it has some limitations which make it not so great for those whose main focus is weight loss, in my opinion.  It is not possible to enter personal data (height, weight and gender), therefore the displayed calories burned seem to be preset and may more likely than not be far from accurate for most users.  Monitoring of the heartrate requires one to continusously hold on to the hand rails.  This is inconvenient as it impedes proper form while speed walking, jogging or running, and intermittent holding on does not give immediate accurate readings.  There is also no automatic incline, which limits the types of workouts which one can do.  The manual 3 position incline is really only 2 positions, as one of them is a 0% incline, and those 2 are not steep enough to be noticable (to me).  There are no handle bars on the front of the treadmill to hold onto, which I find a bit odd.  Lastly, the maximum user weight seems a bit small to me.  110 kg / 242 lbs is well under some people's starting weight when beginning an excercise regime.  On the flipside, it does come with a lifetime warranty, so that shows that it is of good quality and can withstand the test of time if the manufacturer's user guidelines are followed.  I find this to be a good treadmill for a treadmill newbie or one who has no interest in tracking calories burned or shedding lots of weight.  I would not recommend it for anyone who wants to spend hours running, is heavier or prefers a steep or even moderate incline.