So to help avoid your frustration, there's a step when it says to connect the foot plates with the screws, but there are no screws, but that's because they're already in the machine and you have to unscrew them (the picture I uploaded where I'm pointing), I spent 10 minutes looking for screws because I gather the items up before I start a new step (no pun intended), and that but of information is going to save you some time. You can customize the angle of the pedometer via a bolt (I included a picture), and the angle of the steps themselves (also included a picture). I wish you could get a better range of motion, like higher steps, but realistically steps are only ever about 8 inches tops so this already exceeds that. I feel this fully in my quads, not my butt, and given the nature of the design, you're not pulling your body weight up, so it's less of an exercise than actually walking up and down stairs, but not everyone has stairs so there's that. I do wish there was resistance, but that might be over handling. definitely a quad burn,maybe it's be more of a booty burn if you already have powerful quads.
It's not really quiet, actually fairly loud, so if you have crazy downstairs neighbors you'll want to wait until they're not home because the stepping motion will absolutely sound like someone scraping something on the floor (I had my 7 year old do it upstairs while I was downstairs, and when it hits the end, that will cause a slight bang. the display is time, a count of how many you've done (up on each side for both feet is 1), calories burned, and RPM. I wouldn't say it should be $70, 40 definitely yes.
Overall pros: higher range of motion than typical stairs, foldable, good cardio
cons: no resistance, noisy.
sorry for the wall of text