Compact Folding Treadmill for Parents & Professionals: WalkingPad X21 Treadmill Review

Hey guys, this is Michael with the Jungle Gym Reviews. Today we're reviewing the Walking Pad X21 Walking and Running Treadmill. This is a foldable walking and running treadmill that actually has a top speed of seven and a half miles per hour. A lot of people hear treadmill or walking treadmill and think that might sound boring and lame, but honestly, these are super practical because they don't take up a ton of space with the folding feature and also all of us, myself included with jobs, work, kids, busy schedules and lives don't really have the time or what I consider even the luxury these days to take a 20 minute outside alone with my thoughts walk. So being able to multitask while working from home in the living room, watching your kids playing, and or quickly getting a run in the comfort of your own home, these treadmills have so much more utility and application than those big and bulky treadmills that everyone has in their basements, so let's check it out. So if you're not familiar with Walking Pad, their claim to fame is walking treadmills specifically that fold and half.

This is one of their newer models, the X21. It's a walking treadmill that I'll show here in a second. But the coolest feature about this is it's also a running slash jogging treadmill with a top speed of seven and a half miles per hour.

Now, most people again think treadmills and like, oh my gosh, super not interesting, whatever, but walking treadmills in particular are super helpful for most people in modern busy lives because you can store it pretty much anywhere because it folds and it's very low profile, small, compact and really you just get on and go. Now, before I get into video, you would quickly hit that subscribe button below if you haven't already. It's going to continue to help us grow the channel and make sure you get notified when we post two times a week reviews throughout the rest of 2025. And if you're interested in purchasing this after the review, please check out that affiliate link in the description below. So for those who don't know, I'm an engineer by trade and now I do this YouTube content creation. So I'm always at a desk stuck at a computer.

That's where something like this comes into play. It easily folds, double folds actually and has wheels on it. So if I unplug this, I can wheel this around even though it weighs, I think about 80 pounds like this. So if you want to like pick it up and move it, it's moderately heavy, but not unreasonable. You can store this in a corner of your living room.

You can put this under your desk off against the wall. And that's what makes this so perfect. Hey, time to walk. Need to put it up to my desk.

Time to get it run in, whatever it is. You just wheel it out, put it into place. And there's a little handle here that's like locking and unlocking. So it won't just fall over by itself, but this handle here at the back.

You pull up and it unlocks this top portion down and you just grab the second half, push it all the way down. And now you have a pretty compact full treadmill capable of going one mile an hour to seven and a half miles an hour, which is fantastic for those of us like me who maybe don't run all the time, but still would like to run, you know, at least a couple of times a week. For me, it's 20 minutes twice a week zone two.

This is perfect for me. That's somewhere in the six to seven mile per hour range, seven and a half miles per hour. I think that's like an eight minute mile. So as long as you're not doing like a ton of, ton of miles at a ton of, ton of speed, something like this is perfect because you don't have to get a big singular dedicated treadmill. I primarily walk on this every day. So I use it for about four miles and it's really as easy as getting on hitting a button.

It gives you a countdown three, two, one and you go. So I like to just walk while I'm doing work. I actually put this underneath my standing desk. Now this little removable bookpad, phone rest, tablet rest, whatever this is kind of gets in the way. So I typically take that off, put that off to the side, but this is the profile. Then I have, when I put my standing desk above here, it goes pretty much perfect hike to where it gives like an inch or two of clearance.

And then I now have my desk. I'm literally just walking like this and I get in usually about two miles in the morning, two miles in the afternoon. And then depending on the day of the week, I crank it up into six, six and a half miles per hour and do my, do my jogging.

It's super easy to use. Yes, it doesn't feel, you know, as stable and secure as a big treadmill. And I'll say the other thing you notice is the deck itself is not cushioned like a big treadmill.

Slow profile. It's just here on the ground. So it doesn't have all the bells and whistles because it's not a true dedicated running treadmill. It's a walking treadmill with the added features of being able to be used for running, which again is helpful for I'd say most of us who are not tried in true runners. There also is an app on here and the actual screen on here that make it pretty easy to use. It tells you on the top your digital display and speed, time, distance, and then up here is your calories, which would just take with a grain of salt. What is really cool about this though, as an app, it's really easy to use. The app allows you to set reset speeds. For me, I actually set it so when I hit start on this, it automatically goes to two and a half miles per hour. So I don't have to sit there and twist the knob and cycle through one, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, all the way up to the speed I want. You can start already in the speed range I typically use it at. It also has, I think it does like one, two, three, preset speeds, so that could be three miles an hour for your walking, let's say six for a slow jog, and then top speed at seven and a half. So if you have your phone, and whether it's on the little tablet holder or it's just in your hand, you can just quickly sit there and say, oh, three miles an hour, six miles an hour, seven and a half miles an hour, and it adjusts to that speed. Overall, the utility of this and the simplicity of this, and the functionality of this is really exactly what particularly I need in my life, and I think that most people could benefit from at home, again, because it does not take up a whole lot of space, and then it's versatile enough to do a couple of things that you need. So the value for this then is, well, what does it cost?

So this is about $900, which to a lot of people is like, wow, that's kind of expensive. Yes, it's still less than I would say like a dedicated treadmill, and it takes up less space, but obviously more than just a walking-only treadmill. If you only need walking, I do recommend looking at some of their walking-only versions, anywhere from like three to $500.

They have a couple of different models in the walking range that have a couple of different specifications, depending on deck size, belt size, and speed capability, motor size, et cetera. Speaking of the motor, on this I believe it's a 1.25 horsepower motor. Most treadmills that are geared towards jogging or running in the $1,000 range are usually like two to three horsepower. So this is underpowered as a running slash jogging treadmill, but again, this is not a dedicated running treadmill. This is a walking treadmill that can be used for running as needed, although then the limitation is two things, probably like long-term durability for running. So again, I would not buy this if you were a long-term slash distance runner, both from maybe the lack of cushioning. I guess it's the same as like concrete, but if you're doing a lot of miles on a treadmill, you probably want something a little more cushion, and obviously you want something that's gonna last a little bit longer, be a little bit more durable, basically have a longer belt to be able to take longer strides, have a higher motor to be able to deal with that high power output that you need over time. The max user weight, I think is about 240 pounds, which makes sense with that 1.25 horsepower motor, because it starts to probably bog down as you go to that seven and a half mile per hour. For me, six foot two, I weigh about 175, 180 pounds, not a super huge guy. That's plenty for me.

I've never had issues with the belt slipping, the motor slipping, any sort of like heat or any sort of anything being generated from longer time use. This has been perfect for my needs. My specific gripes, I guess, about this are just a handful of quality of life things. Because it is foldable, you'll see the little joints here. You can actually feel those a little bit when you're standing on there, just because there is a gap with hinges that has to fold for the actual structure and profile of this. So when you are walking and your foot goes over it, you do feel just like the slightest little bit of a detent. It's gonna depend on the surface you're on, obviously.

Speaking of then the surface, that's my other kind of gripe is I use this up in my office typically, which has hardwood floors throughout. Well, on the back, these little feet are plastic. So two things, when you go each time, before you go each time, you wanna make sure you rotate these clockwise, counterclockwise to be like level on your floor. Because they're just plastic, they absorb and take a lot of the impact from even just you walking and especially from you running.

Two things, they're not very soft, they're hard. So the treadmill will sometimes kind of walk itself a certain angle way. Or two, because the locking mechanism for these is just like a little threading. They either tighten down a little bit too much or shift height to where then after one use that's already kind of unlevel again. So every single time I use it, I have to kind of feel under all the feet, climb on here, make sure all the little feet are adjusted to the right height. Otherwise, you'll get like rocking and playing of it.

And again, just every single use, so you gotta check that. The other things I wish they could do to improve this, although it probably doesn't make sense with the folding design, is I do wish there was an option to incline this. So whether it was a little prop in the front, like I've seen on some other brands, something to like lift this up and then somehow also be able to lock out those hinges. But the hinges is my guess as to why they don't have this because then that's like a weak point when you're trying to run or you have a maybe a heavy individual who's putting a lot of strain and stress on that, then they have to figure out a good way to lock it all in place and in this way, it's just fully supported evenly by the ground. So I guess that kind of makes sense.

But personally, I would like to have the option to incline. This is definitely noticeably better than like my generic Amazon one that I bought for maybe like two or $300. Functionally, yes, they do the same thing. And yes, my Amazon brand one lasts me a whole year plus at same heavy usage. Although the Amazon one couldn't do running, the Amazon one would always smell like smoke and potentially be a fire hazard. It required a lot more lubrication.

The belt, even when I tensioned it properly, would still slide left to right. This one, again, after months of use, miles and miles every single day, Monday through Sunday, this is getting at least two to four miles of walking and or additional two miles ish of running a couple of times a week. So this, I actually have a ton of experience on this to say I will be keeping this, I will be using this. I do recommend it for people like me who have a use case for mild running slash jogging in addition to maybe a lot of walking, busy professionals, content creators, et cetera, people who are at home in this hybrid office workspace.

This is exactly what you want. If you don't want to spend $900, definitely take a look at one of their cheaper models because again, the concept of just folding out of the way, their cheaper models rather than having this whole brace here, which is a little bit bigger, won't have that at all. It's just a flat pad. So you can now take this, slide it under a bed. Again, slide it up against a wall. This is kind of nifty because it does allow operate, which then even gives you a little technically more low profile, but then the downside is this railing itself does not fold out of the way. So if you want to try to put this under the desk or something like I have and currently do, you just need to make sure your height torso where you like to work, where the desk comes down, has enough clearance for this. The dimensions to the top of the handrail is approximately 39 inches, but then the button itself adds another half inch. So that's 39 and a half.

Max width side to side is 28 inches and the running deck is 48 inches by 18 inches. And then the last thing I want to mention is the overall like loudness of this, the motor. So I'm going to take it down real quick again. I'm going to try to capture the volume with this mic here. We will see if it works, but as I said, there's not a lot of shock absorption. So if you're trying to use this in an apartment or upstairs, there definitely is some noticeable noise from you, you know, stomping around on this. And my kids and my wife can definitely hear when I'm running upstairs, if I were to put some sort of padding underneath it, Matt, that would help.

But just the overall design and the cushioning, you can only do so much. The actual like overall volume of this, like what is loud, is this going to bother my neighbors? I would say if you're on a second floor, definitely. And that's just more going to be the challenge of any treadmill as you bouncing around your full weight. But as far as like the noise of how loud this is, let's see if I'm going to get it here. The biggest noise is not actually the motor or anything at all. The motor is very quiet. It's literally just a friction of your feet on the belts.

So hopefully that lets you capture it. It's truthfully not very loud at all. So I'm, this is definitely geared towards home use. Perfect for, again, offices at home, even in your living room, if you just want to bring it out while your kids are, again, playing, while you're watching TV late at night, this is a great option. So guys, that's it for this review on the Walking Pad X21, foldable walking and running slash jogging treadmill. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below.

I'll be happy to answer at least try. Thanks for tuning in to Jungle Gym Reviews. We'll see you next time. Take it easy. Peace.