Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower Review – Not Good Enough

Last year we reviewed the Merach NovaRow R50 alongside the Concept 2 for several months, with the C2 coming out on top. The Merach was better priced, but the monitor was almost completely useless. They went back to work and recently launched the Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower, which has almost the exact same specs across the board, except for a brand-new monitor.

The question is, at $100 more expensive than their previous offering, did they take a big leap forward, or a step backwards?

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Transparency Note

Merach sent me their original NovaRow R50 for review, and we enjoyed most of it, except for the monitor. They decided to send over the R50 Pro which has a new and improved monitor. This was sent for free, for sake of review, along with an affiliate link.

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Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower Overview

The team at MERACH is VERY focused on their comparisons to the Concept2. So much so, that I would be shocked if they didn’t have one in their factory at the same time as they were putting this together. Spec by spec, the Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower matches up almost exactly to the Concept2. But there are a LOT of rowers on the market that match up pretty well. That is, until you get to the monitor (we’ll come back to that).

The Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower has a Professional-Grade Air Resistance System that includes 32 fan blades and 10 adjustable resistance levels. The adjustments are just flipping the switch up and down, which essentially makes the air more difficult to move. The more difficult it is to move, the more “resistance” you have with each rep. The other benefit to air rowers, much like air bikes, is that they are increasingly more difficult the harder you work. This is awesome for a number of reasons.

First, it means they are automatically scalable. If my daughter hops on, or I do, and we simply “work hard”, the rower is going to accommodate that. Second, because I tend to max out “normal people” home gym equipment, the rower can fight back against me much harder, making my life more and more miserable.

And last, is that it adjusts as you get tired. If you crank it out the gate it’ll fight back a little more than when you get tired. So you aren’t getting entirely destroyed the whole way. The downside here is that it can be difficult to manage a consistent workout, which is where a quality monitor comes into play.

If you have ever used a Concept2 Rower before, you are well accustom to this concept because… Ding Ding Ding… it is the exact same thing.

Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower Specs

• Brand: MERACH
• Made In USA: No
• Power Required: Battery powered, no plug in
• Dimensions In Storage Mode: 32.7″D x 28.7″W x 54.3″H
• Dimensions In Use: 94″D x 24″W x 40″H
• Recommended Weight Capacity: 350 Pounds
• Weight: 73 lbs
• Warranty: 2 Years
• Return Window: 30 Days
• Frame Materials: Alloy Steel
• Chain: Nickel-plated steel
• Resistance: 10 Adjustable Settings w/ maximum of 110 pounds of tension
• Resistance Mechanism: Air w/ 32 fan blades
• Assembly: Less than 10 minutes

Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower Features

If you’ve seen a rower before, this is going to line up pretty closely. There are some small quality of life features that differ between the Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower and the rest of the competition, but we got a lot of the same concepts.

Seat & Handles

The majority of gym equipment that enters my gym, needs to be capable of working with me at 6ft and 240lbs, my wife at 5ft 6in and 150lbs, and my daughter at her current 9 years of age. The feet pedals have two adjustments to accommodate different sized athletes. First is the length of the shoe. You adjust this with the tabs seen in the picture. Second are the straps, which lock you onto the foot plates. The footplate also moves at the bottom so you can get more power from your feet.

The Ergonomic Handles have a vented design which keeps them light and efficient. They have a rubber handle, which isn’t typically a go-to on my end, but for a rower, it makes sense.

The Seat

Getting a seat to fit different backsides correctly is a tough game. It is like finding the right pillow or mattress, everyone wants a different firmness, shape, and support. The team at Merach opted for a bit softer of a seat compared to the Concept2. When we compared the original R50 and C2 seats, we liked the R50 better. It wasn’t drastic, and you can purchase a different option on Amazon, but it did get a slight edge in feel.

The Pro seat seems to be very similar. We’ll do some side by side comparisons as we get closer.

The Monitor

Read just about any review of a Concept2 product and you’ll see that their monitor is the BEST IN CLASS. We got rid of the original R50 because the monitor was frustrating. As soon as I opened up the new Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower, it was obvious that the monitor had been completely redone.

The previous buttons were confusing. These seem to be very straight forward. The previous monitor had a lot of screen changes, this has a lot more static information. The previous monitor had a lot of “features” that I think were wasted in every way possible, this seems to be much easier to get to work regardless if you want to hop on and hit it and quit it, or run through a program.

We’ll need some time to explore the features in depth, but we are a very basic monitor family. Show me my time and basic metrics on an easy to read screen, and we are happy. We might have a winner.

Vertical Storage & Mobility

We’ve got two features here for storage. First, are the wheels. It makes moving this thing around fairly easy. Second, is being able to store in two different ways. We store our vertically most of the time on the back patio, but it can completely break down for storage like seen above.

I’m glad we have multiple options, as no gym is going to have the same requirements. And including storage in home gym equipment is an absolute requirement.

Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower Performance

The Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower has handled me at 250lbs and 6ft tall just fine. My daughter who is about 200lbs lighter, and multiple athletes in-between. From a pure rowing perspective, just like their previous model, this thing works just as well as any other rower on the market.

I wanted to get that out of the way before we jump into the monitor, because the Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower by all metrics, is a solid rower.

The Monitor

On the original R50 it was terrible. The buttons made no sense, it was hard to read, and after multiple months of use we just abandoned it entirely. The new Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower monitor IS, in fact, better. But, not better enough.

First, the white font bleeds into the blue background, which makes this more of a light blue on a solid blue combo. My wife struggles to read this so much that she has gone back to the original decision of abandoning it entirely.

Second, is that the buttons still don’t exactly work as I would expect them to. Let me give you a little run down.

We have 4 main buttons with two arrows on the Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower monitor (which you can see above). The Program button helps us select between Manual, Interval, and Target. That is it, once we choose a program it does nothing else. Manual mode is also redundant, because simply starting to row does the same thing (actually selecting Manual doesn’t seem to do anything at all). And the Select button gives us historical data on the rower. Not sure why it wasn’t called History, or why that needed a dedicated button, but here we are.

So we use the Enter and the Up and Down arrows to navigate the rest of the monitor, with the Reset button acting as a BACK button.

If we pick Interval, we can modify the work time and the rest time, or as it calls it here, restore, as well as the total number of intervals.

But when we go to the next screen, they trade out those terms for some SPM categories. SPM would typically stand for Strokes Per Minute, which is kind of confusing here.

SPM10 is the working time, SPM20 is rest, and SPM30 is your remaining intervals which obviously makes no sense. I have no idea why they didn’t keep the same wording from one screen to the next.

I won’t go into every nook and cranny here on the monitor, as you probably get the idea. You can manage to navigate your way through if you learn the odd labeling of the buttons and the on screen layout, the awkward navigation, and the nuances to how the programs work, and sometimes just bashing the reset button to start completely over.

But long story short… there is still a lot of… why is this like that? Going on here with the Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower monitor, leaving us still miles away from the Concept2 PM5.

Comparing To Concept2

Play

Concept2 is awesome. But I believe their patents on their equipment all expired, hence why we are seeing knock offs pop up all over. You can get a ski machine from Wal Mart for $250, everybody got a rower now, the only thing that isn’t being copied so far is their StrengthERG (that might be too new). Before we wrap this up, I want to point out a few things that might not be obvious.

The Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower and all the others listed below, are going to probably match up REALLY close, and be quite a bit less than the Concept2 is brand new. So you might ask, why would I ever buy a Concept2?

First, as we just saw, is the Monitor. Even with the Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower, if you want an easy to use screen, tracking metrics, or even to just row with some basic modes that make sense, Concept2 is still the GOAT.

Next is their customer service and the Concept2 name. They have been making rowers for decades, that have been battle tested by the best athletes on the planet, in every CrossFit gym across the globe, and they keep coming back for more. If anything goes wrong, even with older models, they still support them with parts and service. The chance that any other company does this, is very small. On top of that, they are a small, family run and locally operated business. They pay their employees well, donate to non-profits, and are active members of the strength and conditioning community. They are everything you’d want in a company.

Keep those things in mind as you make your decision and look at alternatives.

Should You Buy the Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower?

If you want the best rower on the market, the Concept2 is still it. The best monitor, the best customer support, the team is still doing R&D into new pieces like the Strength ERG, and a dozen more reasons to support them as a solid company.

If you consider yourself a competitive rower, either by means of Hyrox, CrossFit, or actual rowing, you likely need to take a look at what your sport uses, and buy that rower. The metrics, timing, flywheel specs, all might be just a little different on the various rowers. And it is better to practice with what you plan to play with.

If you are a normal person looking to snag a rower on a budget, you don’t care about the monitor or the features or the apps or the metrics, you just wanna row…There are a metric ton of rowers available now. And since they are all biting the Concept2, you are almost guaranteed to get the same thing, minus some differences in the monitor, regardless of who you buy from.

As of recording, Bells of Steel has one, FED Fitness has one, GMWD offers one, and a bunch more, and the original R50 is still available through Walmart for just $460. If you don’t mind WayFair they can be bought for almost half the price there as well.

Hit a quick Google search, type in Budget Adjustable Air Rower, and see what you get.

The Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower currently clocks in at $529, but has a discount code that’ll bring you under $500. So it might be the cheapest, or it might not. And of course, Marketplace is a great option as well. If you haven’t seen, we now have HomeGymMarketplace as well. A dedicated used market for home gym peeps to sell directly to other home gym peeps.

Good luck bargain shopping!

Other Rowers On The Market

Obviously this isn’t the only Rower on the market. Ther are Water Rowers, Air Rowers, and other options. Lets take a look at a few of the air rowers available.

Concept2 RowerErg

The most well known option, so much so that MERACH calls it out in their marketing materials. If you are a CrossFit athlete or simply want THE BEST, this might still be the gold standard. Check out the Concept2.

Rogue Echo Rower

Rogue sold the Concept2 and nothing else for over a decade. Then this last year dropped the Rogue Echo Rower. This thing has overbuilt wheels, and a ton of features that make it a BEAST of a rower. Clocking in at a little cheaper than the Concept2, assuming you don’t NEED the Concept2, this might be the most premium alternative available. Check out the Rogue Echo Rower.

Blitz Air Rower from Bells of Steel

Bells of Steel has started getting into the cardio and conditioning realms in recent years. Their Blitz Air Rower is a good example. You can see from the pictures that it has a VERY similar design, with the same handles, seat, monitor arm, and more. On sale it comes in around $200 cheaper than the Rogue, but is quite a bit more expensive than the NovaRow R50 when we include discount codes. Check out the Blitz Air Rower.

AssaultRower

Makers of the Assault Bike, the AssaultRower comes in Pro and Elite options. Aesthetically, this is the most unique rower included in this list. From the lack of angle in the front body, to the curved edges, and even the placement of the monitor. It clocks in right around the Rogue price. Check out the AssaultRower.

Amazon Offerings

There are a TON more offerings out there. So I can’t list them all, but even Amazon has over 100 listed. They range in price GREATLY, so as always, YMMV.

Wrap Up

The way I’m looking at it for our gym is… The Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower is getting the job done for now, but it still leaves me wanting more. I don’t think it is the perfect companion to our Stair Climber. Which tells me it will end up for sale here soon, as we continue to hunt down that perfect pairing for cardio bliss!

💲Want to snag The Merach NovaRow R50 Pro Air Rower? Check their website or look at Amazon to find the best deal.

Use Code: r50progray to Save On Your Order On Their Website or on Amazon.