ProForm 105 CST Treadmill Review

The Proform 105CST is one of the most basic treadmills you can buy from Proform these days. It’s a compact model basic in its function and one that comes with a low price-tag. Just what are you getting for your money though and is it worth it, or would looking elsewhere be the sensible thing to do? The only way to answer these questions was to take a closer look….

Open the manual up to see what needs to be done for assembly and you’d be forgiven for suddenly suffering a bout of anxiety! One of the first diagrams in the user manual to greet you is one of a hundred different pieces and what looks like the skeleton of a treadmill! Thankfully a second, more considered, look informs us that this is, in fact, an exploded diagram that identifies all the parts for warranty purposes. The sort of diagram that is usually to be found at the back of a user manual :).  As it turns out assembly is simple enough with very little to do and with two people and takes around 20-30 minutes.

Once assembled it’s obvious that this treadmill isn’t built to pull up trees, but that’s not what it’s designed for. This model is aimed squarely at those that are tight for space and on that front, for the most part, it accomplishes its task. With a 163cm x  76cm (64.2″ x 29.9″) footprint when unfolded it’ definitely compact and will fit into almost any abode. The 81cm x 76cm (31.8″ x 29.9″) folded footprint is decidedly compact too making it suitable if you’re tight for space. Have we seen better in this respect? Yes, we have, and while this is nowhere near as compact when folded as other machines we’ve tested it’s still not bad at all.

A quick shake test tells us that this treadmill is sturdier than it looks. That’ll be down to the stabilising metal crossbar that runs between the two upright posts. A small addition, a big difference in stability. Step on board and the available running area isn’t as bad as the 41cm x 127cm (16.1’’ x 50’’) specs would have you thinking. While an extra cm or two in width would be welcome it’s worth remembering that this machine is trying to meet a very specific brief and the fact that there’s a good bit of length here makes the running experience a solid one, though certainly does not lend itself to high-speed sprinting. The cushioning helps too and here there’s been no need for cuts to size so the deck feels very much like a lot of larger budget Proform treadmills. It works well and there’s a good reason why this system features in so many of their machines. One problem that’s hard to see past is the manual incline system. To change the incline you have to stop the machine, get off, physically lift it into the incline setting you want and then get back on. To compound matters, the maximum incline setting is a decidedly modest 6%. Regardless of the price, this is a let-down as we’ve seen similar machines from Proform in the past at this price that did feature motorised incline systems.

The console has 7 workout options comprising a manual mode and 6 programmes based on calorie burn targets. The 5″ LCD display does a respectable job of displaying your training data there’s also a Bluetooth Smart wireless heart rate receiver, which is nice to see. In addition to the onboard preset workouts it’s also possible to sign up to the iFit interactive training service. Download the app onto a tablet, and then connect to the treadmill. Place the tablet in the holder and you can access HD workout videos led by personal trainers and a whole lot more, though this does come at a price via a subscription that’s currently in the region of £100 a year and requires a reasonably fast internet connection.

The Proform 105 CST is covered by a lifetime frame, 5-year motor and 2-year parts and labour warranty.