NordicTrack 55 lb. Select-a-Weight Dumbbell Pair

The NordicTrack adjustable dumbbells are a real winner that are working out well for my wife and I. Pros: 1) Nice weight range (10-55) and sufficient increments for me. We have a small set of 2.5 to 8-lb individual dumbbells to fill in on the very low end. 2) Compact dumbbells. The dumbbells are no longer than needed for the weight you are using. The 10-lb configuration is narrower than the 20-lb, which is narrower than the 30-lb, which is narrower than the 40-lb, which is narrower than the 50-lb. DO NOT DISCOUNT this when shopping for adjustable dumbbells. You do not want to be swinging around a 2-ft long bar in each hand when simply using a 10-lb dumbbell. It gets in the way and limits the range of motion for some exercises. These incrementally add plates to the end as the weight goes up. So they are compact at low weights, and very much the size of a fixed dumbbell of similar weight at heavier weights. 3) Easy to adjust. The adjustment system is low effort, but locks solidly and seems unlikely to fail long term, normal use. 4) Value. Not the cheapest, but give a great bang for the buck. Cons: 1) Slower to adjust, relatively. Some changes require moving 4-adjustment levers on each dumbbell, depending on what weight you are switching between. A single or double dial is quicker, no doubt. But, note that I said "relatively". They really only take a couple of seconds to adjust, and it has been a non factor in my workouts. 2) Missing some weight choices. You can add 2.5-lb or 5-lb to the coarse 10-lb, 20-lb, 30-lb, 40-lb, 50-lb settings. So you can do 12.5-lb & 15-lb, but not 17.5-lb, etc. The next increment after 15-lb is 20-lb. You could fudge around this by selecting an uneven amount to each end of the dumbbell, which would make them unbalanced by 2.5-lbs and give you a 7.5-lb increment. But I don't suggest doing that. For me, the increments are fine enough for what I do, and I move up and down in 5-lb amounts anyway. 3) maybe more fragile than fixed weights? This is actually a comment that applies to probably all adjustable dumbbells, simply because they have a selection mechanism added to them. These do not appear fragile in the absolute sense, but I have no plans to drop them the way you see some guys do with fixed weights at the gym. I researched buying these quite a bit, and narrowed it down to several contenders. The Bowflex dumbbells were one finalist, and are undeniably slick, with the one-knob adjustment system. But, they (and some others) have a disqualifying flaw (in my opinion) where the dumbbell bar is always full length, regardless of how much weight you've selected. Even at whatever their minimum is, you are swinging around like a two-foot rod with each arm. Anyway, I'm a happy customer, and these are working great. 5/2/2025 UPDATE: 15-months later, and these are still going strong and doing the job. One annoyance is the lack of labels indicating which way to move the 2.5-lb/5-lb levers. But I solved that by putting a small dab of silver automobile touchup paint on the 5-lb side (SEE photo). Seems like an obvious issue that the manufacturer would address, but it only took a couple of minutes for me to fix it permanently.