Conquer Under Desk Portable Electric Treadmill Walking Pad Review

As we wait for our evaluation unit to arrive at the test labs we can share our initial observations of this new offering, the Conquer treadmill found exclusively on Amazon, the latest of a spate of extremely cheap walking treadmills to pose as a usable platform for building your own treadmill desk, such as the EgoFit Walker and Versadesk Ultra-Thin Office Treadmill.

This treadmill is for the dogs. No, literally.

We won’t mince words. This thing is TINY. It weighs a third as much as most true under-desk treadmill bases, and has a walking belt like you’d see on a dog treadmill. With a weight rating of under 200 lbs and a duty cycle of literally 90 minutes of use, the Conquer treadmill “Walking Pad” was clearly designed for dogs but being marketed by this Chinese manufacturer as a base for treadmill desks that people would use. People!

There are a couple of things that seem very attractive about this unit. It is small and light, and tilts up on end to store against the wall; thus they market it as “portable.” And it’s cheap. Shockingly cheap. At $299 the unit is built with the cheapest possible components. And maybe for a dog treadmill that’s not a bad price. In fact, we checked on Amazon and it’s at the low end of prices for dog treadmills.

For an average American user a treadmill belt on a walking treadmill should ideally be 50″ long and 20″ wide. Any shorter than 50″ and people of average height will have a freaky experience with the slightest distraction (like their phone ringing) allowing their stride to lengthen and to feel the rear roller with their tows as they run out of tread. We have an entire primer on why the width of a treadmill belt is a critical safety and usability factor. The Conquer unit is a scant 41.5″ long and only 16″ wide, which may be reasonable for a very small person who is just watching TV while walking, but cannot possibly work for anyone using it at a desk.

The Conquer reminds of us the now-defunct Woodway Treadmill Desk Base that had a similarly sized belt. The delivery truck carrying our evaluation unit from Woodway circled round and round our building looking for a veterinary clinic because they just assumed a treadmill this size could only be for rehabilitating dogs.

Fraudulent user reviews are highly misleading

In general we put very little stock in reviews on Amazon when it comes to office fitness products nowadays, and the Conquer is no exception. Like many products sold by Chinese marketers on Amazon these days all the 5-star reviews seem completely and transparently fake. What the 5-star reviews describe as a “sleekly designed remote” real buyers describe as “a cheap feeling remote that failed quickly.”

Just read the bountiful 1 to 4-star reviews to get a real flavor for the quality of this product. Countless users report all sorts of component failures, atrociously bad documentation, and general disappointment. Some, obviously very small-statured users report it works fine in front of the TV. We went through pages and pages of reviews and couldn’t find one that was using it with a standing desk to actually work at, despite the top bullet in the Amazon listing reading Convert a standing desk to a walking desk.

No, really, it’s designed for dogs.

The first hint of trouble in looking over the specifications for this unit is that it is the first treadmill we’ve ever seen that automatically shuts off after 90 minutes, to save its wimpy 1.5 HP DC motor from burning out too quickly. And that’s with a user weight limit of just 200 lbs. The worst part is there is no warning that the treadmill will stop so unless you set a timer to hop off after 89 minutes you’ll get a rude surprise if you hit the time limit. Fortunately for dog owners 90 minutes is more than enough session time for Rover. Remarkably, one customer reported that she was never able to get the treadmill to work with any of her desks but her terrier loves walking on it now, so she kept it for the dog to be able to get his walks in when the weather outdoors is forbidding.

The flimsy remote basically has on-off, speed-up and speed-down buttons, and that is all. To see a readout you’d literally need to hop off the running treadmill and read it off the display at the head of the walking belt, because it was never designed for use with a standing desk in the way, that much is abundantly clear. The readout itself is only in metric so you’ll be reading kilometers, not miles per hour on the display. Numerous users complained that the power switch on the remote doesn’t actually power down the unit, it just stops it moving. To turn off the unit entirely you need to bend all the way down and flip the actual power switch near where the 2-foot power cord comes into the unit. Users reported this switch breaks easily as well.

We seriously question whether this Conquer treadmill is UL Certified. Our advice to any consumer or business is to never plug anything into a power socket that isn’t UL certified, especially not a treadmill. Many of the normally required safety features on a treadmill are missing from this unit. That spells fire hazard and potential injury hazard. With a top speed of 3.7mph—well beyond the 2.5mph max recommended for treadmill desking—and no safety rails, this treadmill is an accident waiting to happen in our expert treadmill review staff members’ opinion.

Run, don’t walk

…away from this product. This is the first product we’ve ever reviewed that does not even come with a manufacturer’s warranty, which tells you how long you can expect it to run before it dies from exhaustion. Marketing a dog treadmill for use as a base for a standing desk just goes beyond the pale.

We’ll update this review once we get the unit into the test lab but quite frankly we’d never be able to recommend anything this underpowered and cheaply built, even if the price were only $50. If you’re looking for a quality standalone base to make a treadmill desk check out all the options in our round-up review of standalone office treadmill bases. Or if you’re looking for a complete, integrated treadmill desk be sure to check out our top treadmill desk reviews.

To learn more about our rigorous review methodology check out the anatomy of a review primer. To stay abreast of all our latest product reviews and advice blog articles subscribe to our free newsletter.