Schwinn Treadmill Reviews and Buying Guide

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Our Schwinn treadmill guide is designed to keep you up to date with the latest releases, from entry level through to their top-of-the-line machines.

The Schwinn brand has an impressive history of creating high quality bikes for outdoor cycling, such as road bikes, cruiser bikes, and hybrid bikes. But are they really the best choice for a home treadmill?

In the following guide you’ll find out why they wouldn’t be our first choice, and which design we would recommend in their place.

Why should I buy a Schwinn treadmill?

In terms of treadmills, we’re not going to force the argument that you should. Although there’s nothing wrong with the quality of the treadmills, you can find machines with exactly the same specifications from the Nautilus brand.

It’s not as if Schwinn aren’t experienced with treadmills, having produced the Schwinn 840, Schwinn 820p, and Schwinn 860 in recent years. But these are basic, entry level machines that came and went very quickly.

If you do a little research, you can still find information for all 3 of these machines, but it’s usually in the ‘retired products’ section of the Schwinn website, or as refurbished models.

As a brand they haven’t had the same level of experience in the industry as more established treadmill companies, such as Sole Fitness and Precor. That’s even after acquiring Hebb Industries, a leading manufacturer of treadmills in 1998.

This changed to an extent when the Schwinn brand was acquired by Nautilus, Inc., when in 2015 they released the Schwinn 830 and Schwinn 870 treadmills.

Both of these latest designs offer a much higher level of console design, with more choice in terms of workout selection, and even the option to sync your workout data to an online profile and track your performance.

But compared to the Nautilus treadmill line released around the same time, these features are nothing new. This made us question whether it was best to buy a Schwinn treadmill or the equivalent model from Nautilus.

Schwinn vs. Nautilus treadmills

The latest treadmill collections from Schwinn and Nautilus aren’t just similar, they’re practically identical. At least in terms of specifications, such as number of workout programs, belt speed, and running area.

If you’ve already read our Nautilus treadmill guide or any of our Nautilus treadmill reviews, this is something you’ve probably heard us mention already.

We’re going to try and avoid repeating ourselves here, as we go into much greater detail about the level of similarity in the articles mentioned above. But we did want to provide a quick reference guide for how the treadmills from each collection match up.

Nautilus versions of Schwinn treadmills:

Schwinn 830 Treadmill

Review rating:
As the entry level treadmill in their latest collection, the Schwinn 830 is usually priced around $800. This can be up to $100 cheaper than the Nautilus T614, depending on the time of year and which offers are available on Amazon.

When we compared this against similarly priced machines in the $600-$800 range, it was surprising to see how well it measured up to treadmills with hundreds more reviews, like the ProForm 505 CST and T101-04 from Horizon Fitness.

The ProForm treadmill is limited to a 10% incline (12% with the Schwinn), with a slower belt speed (10mph) and less powerful motor (2.5 CHP compared to 2.75 CHP with the Schwinn).

The T101-04 from Horizon had similar specs to the ProForm, with its 10 mph belt speed, 10% incline, and 2.25 CHP motor falling well short of the Schwinn 830.

There was only one slight advantage with the Horizon treadmill, in that it offered 30 workout programs, compared to 22 with the Schwinn, and 18 with the ProForm 505 CST.

So does the Schwinn 830 really offer more features than any other treadmill in its class, all for a lower price than the equivalent Nautilus T614?

To find out if this is the case, we took a closer look at the workout programs, design features, console functions, heart rate monitoring, and much more in our full review.

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Schwinn 870 Treadmill

Review rating:
As you might expect, the top-of-the-line Schwinn 870 features a number of major upgrades over the 830 model, including a larger running area, more powerful motor, and steep incline.

Both treadmills use a motorized incline system to adjust the gradient, which is an improvement over having to lift and adjust the deck manually.

Taking a closer look at the running deck for the 870 model it becomes clear that this is the best option in terms of low maintenance. The belt is thicker (2-ply 2.0mm instead of 1-ply 1.5mm), and the deck cushioning system is SoftTrak™ 6-cell, instead of SoftTrak™ 4-cell, helping to reduce the impact of your foot fall during each stride.

The 870 is also the only one of the Schwinn treadmills to offer Bluetooth Connectivity, with a heart rate chest strap included.

As with the Schwinn 830, workout tracking is available via the SchwinnConnect system and USB port on the console. When you finish your workout, simply export the data, upload it to your online profile, and see how much your fitness is improving. You can even transfer the data to MyFitnessPal for a complete overview of your nutrition and fitness routine.

As with the Schwinn 830, the Schwinn 870 can be $50-$100 cheaper than the equivalent treadmill in the Nautilus collection at the right time of year. But does this make it the best treadmill under $1000? Find out more in our full review, or check out our complete treadmill buyer’s guide.

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