We haven't owned any other brands to compare but, my husband and I have two of them. He bought a magneto and I got a fluid used. We are pretty happy with them. They are simple to set up, stable even if you stand and sprint, relatively quiet and ride nice and smooth. My husband has acutally ended up using the fluid. He says it has more resistance than the magnetic model, which he found he couldn't spin hard enough to get out of zone3 on. I don't even have to use my highest gears to get my HR up to Zone5 during intervals, so its not an issue for me.