XDDIAS Adjustable Dumbbells and Bench Review

Twenty-five pounds. Per hand. That's the number that decides whether this set is for you, and the rest is detail.

Let me be fair to it first, because the thing it's good at is the thing I care most about: it goes away. Two dumbbells, two trays, one bench that folds. That's a functioning strength setup that lives in a closet, and if you have ever tried to store a rack of fixed dumbbells in an apartment, you know that's not nothing. It's most of the reason to buy it.

The dumbbells adjust by dropping them into the tray and turning the handle. Ten settings per hand, topping out at 25 pounds. XDDIAS says one second, which is technically true if you don't count walking to the tray, setting it down, turning the selector, listening for the click, and checking the handle lines up with the mark. Call it five seconds and a small ritual. Still faster than spinning collars off a loading pin, and you cannot adjust these off the tray, so build the tray location into where you train rather than treating it as storage.

What I actually like is the increments. Ten steps to 25 pounds means jumps of two and three pounds instead of five. For lateral raises and rear delt work, a five-pound jump is the difference between a set and an impression of a shoulder injury. Small steps are underrated, and this is the cheapest way to get them.

Now the ceiling, which is where I stop being nice. 25 pounds per hand is fine for curls, raises, flyes and most accessory work. It is not fine for rows. It stops being fine for presses somewhere around month three if you're training seriously, and goblet squats will laugh at it outright. You'll outgrow this on the compound lifts long before you outgrow it on the isolation lifts, which makes the honest lifespan "beginner, or someone who does their heavy work somewhere else."

The bench is rated to 800 pounds. I file that under numbers that aren't the constraint, since you'll be putting maybe 250 pounds of person and dumbbell on it. Ten backrest positions covering decline through flat, incline and upright, which is the range that matters, and flat is the one to confirm is there because some cheap adjustable benches skip it. It arrives mostly assembled and folds with a pull ring.

Here's my complaint, and it's the same one I have about half the equipment I look at: XDDIAS doesn't publish the folded dimensions. They'll tell you it saves up to 85% of its space, which is a percentage of a number they declined to give you. The dumbbell listing quotes two different footprints in two different places without saying whether that's one dumbbell, one dumbbell in its tray, or the pair. So if this is going into a specific closet, measure the closet, then ask the seller for the folded bench depth before you order. Do not trust the word compact from anyone who won't follow it with an inch.

Noise, because someone lives under you. Metal plates into a metal tray, no rubber anything mentioned. Get a mat and set the dumbbells down rather than dropping them home. The tray return is the loud part, not the lifting.

Two things I can't tell you yet. Adjustable dumbbells fail at the selector mechanism, and there isn't enough owner history on this model to know how this one holds up. Same for the bench hinge and the upholstery seams, which is where folding benches go first. Ask me in two years. What I'd do meanwhile is keep the selector clean and check the bench bolts every couple of months, which nobody does and everybody should.

Would I buy it? Starting out, training in a flat, with 25 pounds comfortably above my working weight, yes, cheerfully. If I were already rowing 40s, no, and the bench being included wouldn't rescue it. The trap with starter sets is buying the starter set twice.