Give me dumbbells or give me death!!!

Well...maybe not death. But give me dumbbells. And not just any dumbbells. Give me the Nautilus Select Tech 552. These gorgeous things caught my eye while I was at Costco. With the twist of a dial these babies can become as light as 2.5 lbs or as heavy as 52.5 lbs. Since I live in an apartment, I don't have the luxury of making room for a complete set of dumbbells, so these seemed ideal for me. Just one problem...they're $400 for the pair. Ouch!

So I decided to look at some other options. We have Stamina's Versa Bells. These are about $310 shipped as a pair, but not as adjustable as the SelectTechs(these can only adjust in 10 lb. increments.)

Then we have these Iron Woody ones which look to be the same thing, but are only $220(shipped) for a pair. Excellent! But they aren't available til Novemeber. Waah! but I want them now!

Finally, we have these from Bayou Fitness. $240 for the pair(shipped.) These were the cheapest I could get in a reasonable time, so I bit the bullet and placed my order. I should have these tomorrow and will give a review then.

Notice how the last 3 sets all look like they came out of the same Chinese factory and only have different logos slapped onto them? I really hate to settle for these since I loved the rubber grips on the Select Techs, and the dial made it a snap to adjust them. Still, they don't seem to be $160 better.

Oh. I forgot to mention another option: Powerblocks. A comparable pair of those is $300 shipped, but they only go up to 45 lbs. and they look like some kind of handcuffs they'd use in the future.