Flexispot Portago Walking Pad Review – 180° Foldable Walking Pad with Brushless Motor

I have reviewed a lot of great products from Flexispot, including the Flexispot BS14 Ergonomic Mesh Office Chair (which I still use at the MSP I work at) and the Flexispot E7Q Odin 4-Leg Standing Desk, which is their largest desk that I paired with a massive 200cm x 90cm bamboo tabletop, and I absolutely love it.

I have also reviewed some of the previous fitness-oriented products, including the Flexispot Sit2Go 2-in-1 Fitness Chair and Flexispot Cycle Desk Bike V9 Pro.

Today, I am reviewing the Portago Walking Pad, which I was quite eager to review, as I feel a walking pad is better suited for me with a standing desk than something like the Sit2Go fitness chair. My partner has also been nagging me about wanting one.

The Flexispot Portago is more expensive than the options you find on Amazon, but the overall quality is superior to those cheap options, and I think it justifies the price for long-term use.

FlexiSpot 10th Anniversary Sale – Update

Since I published this review, FlexiSpot has kicked off its 10th Anniversary sale, and it’s worth flagging because it actually undercuts the price I originally quoted.

As an Early Bird deal running 1–17 August, the Portago has £100 off, dropping it from the £299.99 RRP to £199.99. That’s £45 cheaper than the £245 I paid after stacking the standard discount and voucher code back in July, so if you’ve been sat on the fence because of the price section above, now is the better time to buy. After the 17th it reverts to an “after event” price of £249.99, which is close to where it was when I reviewed it.

There’s also a sitewide 12% off flash sale on 10 August, 10:00–10:59am, using code FS1012. On paper that stacks with the Early Bird price, though FlexiSpot’s basket logic can be inconsistent with combining codes, so I’d add to basket and check the total before assuming both apply.

A few other bits running throughout the month if you’re browsing FlexiSpot’s wider range rather than just the Portago:

• Golden Ticket – any order placed during August is entered into a draw for a £10,000 prize, paid out as £1,000 a year for 10 years. Standard prize-draw caveats apply; I wouldn’t buy something you don’t need for the sake of an entry.
• Flash Cashback Race – 17 and 24 August from 10am, the first 20 orders each day get 50% cashback. Worth setting an alarm for if you’re after something pricier, but with only 20 slots a day it’ll go fast.
• Second Flash Sale – 31 August, 10:00–11:59am, another 12% off sitewide with code ANUK12.

None of this changes my verdict on the Portago itself – it’s still the remote-only controls and missing batteries that are the real complaints, not the price. But at £199.99 rather than £245, the value argument against the cheaper Amazon pads gets noticeably stronger.

Specification

For reference, the model number on the rating label is WP01, and Flexispot sells the same product in the US as the Fold X. If you are cross-referencing American reviews, they are talking about the same walking pad, just with a two-year warranty and pricing quoted in dollars.

What makes it worth the high price vs cheap Amazon models?

Before reviewing this, it stood out to me that this was priced at a premium compared to the options you find on Amazon. There is a wide range of options varying in price from £100 to £200, whereas the Flexispot costs around £250.

Many of these competing options can go faster than 6 km/h, some have built-in legs to create an incline, and some are compatible with apps. Additionally, many of these claim to be able to support heavier users and run quieter.

So, on paper, the Flexispot looks like poor value for the money.

However, it is not as simple as that.

One of the things Flexispot makes a point of with the Portago is the brushless motor, and it is worth explaining why that actually matters rather than being marketing fluff. A traditional brushed motor uses physical carbon brushes to deliver power to the spinning rotor, and those brushes are a wear item. They gradually grind down, generate heat and friction, and are a big part of why cheap walking pads get noisier and weaker over time. A brushless motor does the same job electronically, with no contact parts to wear out. In practical terms, that means it runs quieter (useful if you are on calls while walking), runs more efficiently, and should last considerably longer before anything fails.

To put this into context, Flexispot claims this has passed a 200k cycle fatigue test, which is double the standard used for commercial treadmills and 16x the home use standard.

Many other walking pads will use a brushless motor, but the cheaper ones tend not to, and if they do not state it, they will not be using it.

Looking at the Mobvoi Walking Fit walking pad on Amazon, it is only £140, while having the same speed range, supporting the same user weight and benefiting from app compatibility.

However, the walking area is smaller, at 90 x 38 cm vs the 100 x 41 cm of the Flexispot. As a tall person with a long stride, I felt like if the Flexispot were any smaller, it would have been awkward to use, and the extra width was perhaps more helpful than the length.

Additionally, while the Mobvoi can support the same weight and has the same speed, the net weight of the product is just 13.4 kg vs 23.2 kg. It is going to be far less stable at higher speeds.

Finally, the Flexispot has the advantage of being able to fold the walking pad in half, making it much smaller than competing options for storage. Flexispot quotes a folded footprint of around 0.3 square metres, and it genuinely does tuck under a sofa or against a wall in a way that a rigid pad cannot.

It is also worth noting that the Portago is not that expensive in a wider market context. Kingsmith WalkingPad has options that start at £299, going up to £670. These fold in half, similar to the Portago, and the cheapest option is limited to 6 km/h, uses a brushless motor, and weighs exactly the same as the Portago. But it does have a larger walking area.

Delivery and Set Up

Delivery was quick. I had an order notification from Flexispot then the walking pad was delivered by FedEx the next day. The packaging was solid, with plenty of protective foam, which matters more than usual here because the gross weight is 26 kg and couriers are not always gentle with heavy boxes.

There is no assembly at all. You lift it out of the box, unfold it flat, plug in the power cable, and you are ready to walk. The power inlet is a standard IEC connector with a physical rocker switch next to it, and the supplied cable has a right-angle plug, which keeps it tight against the side of the unit rather than sticking out where you could kick it.

The one minor annoyance is the remote, which needs batteries that are not supplied. It is a small thing, but when a product costs this much, including a pair of AAAs would be a welcome gesture.

During my initial set up, the belt was running slightly off-centre. This is a common quirk with walking pads after shipping, and it is easy to fix. There are two tension bolts at the rear of the deck, one on either side, and a few minor adjustments with the supplied Allen key had the belt tracking straight within a couple of minutes. It has not drifted since, but it is worth checking the belt alignment periodically, as a belt that rubs against the side rail will wear prematurely.

Design and Build Quality

The Portago weighs 23.2 kg, and you can feel where that weight has gone. The frame is steel, the deck has no flex when walking, and the whole unit feels planted in a way that lighter pads simply do not. The side rails have a grey wood-effect finish, which sounds like an odd choice on paper but looks smarter in person than the usual glossy black plastic, and it suits a home office or living room better than most gym equipment.

The 180° folding mechanism is the headline design feature. The deck hinges in the middle, so the pad folds back on itself to roughly half its length. The fold action is smooth, there are transport wheels on the underside, and moving it around on carpet is manageable for one person, although at 23 kg you would not want to carry it up a flight of stairs regularly.

I use this primarily in my home office on thick carpet, so stability was a concern. I previously spent some time with the Kingsmith WalkingPad Z1, and its super low profile meant the deck sat almost directly on the carpet pile, causing vibrations that travelled straight into the floor and made my desk and monitor shake. The Portago does not have this issue. It sits on four large rubberised feet that lift the deck clear of even thick carpet, and there is a good amount of damping in the belt, which provides decent shock absorption underfoot.

Walking at 3 km/h, there is minimal monitor shake on my desk. Above 4.5 km/h, there is some slight shake, which is to be expected when a 90 kg person is repeatedly striking a deck a metre away from the desk legs. If you are on a solid floor, I would expect even less transmission.

The LED display is built into the front housing and cycles through speed, time, distance and calories burned. The digits are large and bright enough to read at a glance from standing height, which is more useful than it sounds when you are trying to hit a distance target during a long call.

The maximum user weight is 120 kg, which is stated clearly on the rating label. That is fairly standard for this category, although heavier users should note that cheaper pads claiming the same figure often weigh half as much, and the maths on that rarely works out well for long-term durability.

The main issue I have with the design is that all control is via the remote, with no on-device controls at all. There is not even a physical start or stop button on the unit itself, only the power switch at the side.

Controls

The remote is a small handheld unit with a simple layout. There are preset buttons for 2 km/h and 4 km/h, which cover the two speeds most people will actually use while working, plus dedicated plus and minus buttons that adjust the speed in 0.5 km/h increments. It is responsive, and the speed changes are smooth rather than abrupt.

The reliance on the remote does have consequences, though. If the remote goes missing, or the non-included batteries die mid-week, the walking pad is effectively unusable until you sort it out. I would strongly recommend sticking a Velcro pad on the remote and attaching it to your desk frame, which is what I have done.

There is a useful safety feature built in. If the pad detects no activity for around 10 seconds, it automatically stops the belt. This sounds trivial, but it is genuinely handy in practice. If the doorbell goes or you need to step off quickly to grab something, you can just walk away without scrambling for the remote, and the belt will not still be running when you get back.

There is no app ecosystem, no Bluetooth and no connectivity of any kind. You do not get walking programs, routines or historical tracking, and the display resets between sessions. Flexispot is an office furniture company rather than a fitness brand, so this is not surprising, but competitors at lower prices do offer apps, and it is a legitimate gap if tracking matters to you. My workaround is simply letting my Apple Watch handle the tracking, which it does more accurately than any walking pad display would anyway.

Performance

Performance is generally good; both my partner and I have been using this in the mornings, and I break the working day up with a couple of 30-minute sessions on top of that.

I am 6 ft 1 and a fast walker, so I can comfortably walk at the 6 km/h max speed. On the gym treadmill, I can walk up to 6.5 km/h, but that is very brisk, and I doubt many people would need to go that fast. For most people, 6 km/h is the boundary between a fast walk and a light jog, and it feels like a sensible ceiling for a device designed to be used at a desk.

At full speed, the walking pad is completely stable, and it maintains that speed easily; there is no belt slipping, and I do not feel like the motor is struggling. Speed holding is consistent whether it is me or my lighter partner on it, which is not always the case with cheap pads, where you can hear the motor labouring on every footstrike.

Noise is one of the stronger points. Flexispot rates it at under 55 dB, and subjectively the motor is quiet enough that the dominant sound is my own footsteps on the belt. On video calls, nobody has commented on or noticed any background noise, even with the microphone on a boom arm above the desk.

In terms of actual exercise value, my Apple Watch reckons I burn around 120 to 140 kcal per 30-minute session at typical working speeds of 2 to 4 km/h, with an average heart rate of about 107 bpm. Pushing the speed to the 6 km/h maximum turns it into a brisk walk or very light jog, and I can hit upwards of 250 kcal in 30 minutes. Calorie burn obviously depends heavily on your weight, height and effort, so treat those as ballpark figures rather than promises. It is not a replacement for proper cardio, but as a way of not sitting completely still for eight hours, it adds up quickly. Two sessions a day works out at around 6000 extra steps.

One limitation worth knowing about is the duty cycle. The instructions state you can use it for up to one hour continuously before letting the motor rest for 20 minutes. In practice, this has not affected me, as my sessions are 30 to 45 minutes, but if you were planning marathon all-day walking sessions, this is not the product for that. On the plus side, I have had no heat issues at all, even towards the end of longer sessions; the motor housing stays cool to the touch.

Price and Alternative Options

The Flexispot Portago Walking Pad has an RRP of £300. Flexispot always has some discounts on, and at the time of writing, it was discounted to £260, with an additional £15 off available via the on-page voucher, bringing it to £245.

During the 10th anniversary sale, you can get it as low as £200.

As previously mentioned, the Kingsmith WalkingPad Z1 is £299 and has a very similar spec to the Flexispot Portago, but benefits from a larger walking area. Based on my time with the Z1, though, the Portago is the better built of the two, particularly if you plan to use it on carpet.

On Amazon, the Toputure Walking Pad is well reviewed and claims to have a brushless motor. It has a prop-up incline, a 100 x 40 cm belt and goes up to 10 km/h. This has a £200 RRP but is available for £170. On paper, that is a strong alternative, and if the incline or higher top speed matters to you, it is worth a look, although I cannot vouch for its long-term durability.

The Mobvoi Walking Fit at £140 remains the budget pick if app connectivity is a priority, but the smaller belt and 13.4 kg weight make it a compromise for taller or heavier users.

Overall

Overall, while the Flexispot Portago walking pad is more expensive than many competing options on Amazon, I think it is still an excellent option.

While I do not have extensive experience with lots of other walking pads, I am confident that this is far better quality than the cheap options. The wider and longer walking area, combined with the heavier weight and proper rubber feet, means it is far more stable, and that stability is exactly what you want when walking a metre away from a monitor. The brushless motor means it should continue to perform well over years, whereas a cheaper option will often see the motor start to wear out if used extensively.

The criticisms are real but mostly minor. The remote-only control scheme is the biggest one, as losing the remote leaves you with an expensive piece of floor furniture, and Flexispot not including batteries is a bit stingy at this price. The lack of any app or tracking will bother some people, although a smartwatch does that job better anyway. The one-hour duty cycle is a limitation on paper, but is unlikely to matter for the desk-walking use case this is designed for.

If your budget stops at £150, the cheap Amazon options will get you walking, and for light use they may be fine. But if you want something that will handle daily use for years, cope with carpet, and not shake your desk apart, the Portago justifies the extra spend, particularly at the discounted price of around £245.

James Smythe( Owner / Editor )

I am James, a UK-based tech enthusiast and the Editor and Owner of Mighty Gadget, which I’ve proudly run since 2007. Passionate about all things technology, my expertise spans from computers and networking to mobile, wearables, and smart home devices.

As a fitness fanatic who loves running and cycling, I also have a keen interest in fitness-related technology, and I take every opportunity to cover this niche on my blog. My diverse interests allow me to bring a unique perspective to tech blogging, merging lifestyle, fitness, and the latest tech trends.

In my academic pursuits, I earned a BSc in Information Systems Design from UCLAN, before advancing my learning with a Master’s Degree in Computing.

I’m proud to share that Vuelio has consistently ranked Mighty Gadget as one of the top technology blogs in the UK. With my dedication to technology and drive to share my insights, I aim to continue providing my readers with engaging and informative content.

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