ProForm Pro 2000 Smart Treadmill Review

ProForm Pro 2000 Smart Treadmill Review

$1,499

These are the hardest kinds of review we do.  We buy and assemble the Pro Form Smart 2000 Treadmills, a brand knocked in online reviews for having cheap, lower quality components and then there is a service problem out of the box.  I mean, come on.  It is not our intention to rip apart Pro Form and we are going to give this machine the benefit of the doubt in the review, but we also have to talk about the machine not working correctly.  As of this write up, we do not know exactly why the elevation is not functioning correctly.  When we give the upper smart display an incline command, the elevation motor does not perform the task we instructed it to do.  We wanted to have a 4% elevation but the treadmill decided it wanted to go to a -3% decline.  And when we wanted to go to zero or flat, the treadmill maxed out the elevation.  This is either a problem with the lower control board or the upper display, or it could be an issue with the data cable.  Either way, we will need to have Pro Form perform a service call to fix it.  We will keep you posted and this could be a good opportunity to see how Pro Form handles service.

**Update: We were able to call Pro Form and after a 17 minute hold we were able to talk to someone in the service department.  They were able to explain to us that this was a fix we could do on our own.  The fix involved doing a diagnostic test on the upper console and it was able to correct itself.  The incline is now working correctly.

Anyways, on to the treadmill review. Let’s start with something positive.  The open frame design of the Pro Form Smart 2000 treadmill is nice.  There is plenty of room to run and it does not feel confined.  Also, the angle of the upper display is good for taller users.  We do wonder if the forward position of the display could potentially be an issue for smaller users.  Sometimes a smaller person must lean forward to touch the upper console and it can lead to their feet kicking the motor cover.  But, for a 6; 4”, 298 LBS behemoth like Big Mike, the angle and positioning is good.  Big Mike did appreciate the feel of the treadmill and overall he commented that it felt stable under foot.  It did appear to onlookers like the Pro Form 2000 was going to bounce out of sight as there was a ton of movement in the frame but the overall feel was good.

One negative with the Pro Form Smart 2000 is that it did not fare well in the speed accuracy test.  This treadmill had one of the biggest changes in speed once a heavier user was added.  Without someone on the belt, at 6mph, the actual speed was 6.06mph or 101% of actual.  When we added a 270lb user, the speed dropped all the way down to 5.78mph.  This is the biggest speed drop of any treadmill we have ever tested.  Almost a 5% drop in speed.

While this treadmill claims a 300lb user capacity, we really doubt that it can stand the test of time.  Obviously Proform feels the same way as they have a rather short / limited warranty.  We feel like this is a rather expensive treadmill but you are not paying for the quality and stability, but rather the large touch screen.

Obviously one of the biggest features of the Pro Form Smart 2000 Treadmill is the large touch screen display.  If you have ready any of our reviews, you know we don’t really care about the bells and whistles.  We are looking at treadmills that claim a 300lb + weight capacity and we do our reviews based on that criteria.  If you want a big display, then this is a nice feature.  If you don’t care about the display or fancy features, then this is not the treadmill for you.  Plain and simple.  If you can spend a few more dollars and want the fancy stuff, we would suggest looking at the Nordic Track 2450.

Check out our Big Guy Treadmill Review comparison chart for a ton more information.

Pros:  Decent overall feel and open frame design.  Plenty of room to run / walk for bigger / heavier users.  Higher than average incline for a folding treadmill (actual incline, not stated incline in spec sheet) Keep in mind that elevation “percentage” is not really a unit of measure so 15% elevation on one treadmill does not mean 15% on another treadmill.  The actual elevation can vary quite a bit between fold up treadmill models.  Decent 2mph – 8mph acceleration rate (14.5 seconds).

Cons: Super bouncy frame makes us wonder about service and reliability down the road.  Significant speed loss once a heavier person gets on the treadmill.  Lots of plastic and a rubbing walking belt out of the box, as well as an incline service issue (which fortunately we were able to resolve).