I upgraded from a BD belt sander so this was quite a jump up in quality. It is sturdy, solid, well made, and has lots of power. The sanding belt tracked perfectly when in use and I was glad to not have to contantly mess with the tracking adjustment as I did on my old BD BS. The spring loaded lever to change belts worked as designed and was easy to use. The dust collector bag and how it connected to the sander didn't work very well. A little tweaking of the bag is required to get it to fit proprerly and then the bag lock clip seemed kind of flimsy. The bag also didn't seem to collect a lot of dust. After extensive sanding, I had more dust in my lungs, face, hair, and shirt; then I did in the DC bag. I wasn't concerned about the lack of variable speed since I would rather vary MY sanding speed (and technique) instead of the sanders speed. IMHO I think variable speed in a belt sander causes more problems than it solves. All in all, I am really happy with this sander and would have given it 5 stars except for the ill fitting and ill operating dust collection system.