It used to always be easy to find cross-trainers, but I've noticed that over the last few years, it's become harder and harder.  I went to two local stores trying to find a good pair, and then ordered three pairs from Amazon in my quest to find ones that I liked. Even though these are listed on the box as a walking shoe and yet Amazon has them listed as a cross-trainer, they where the best ones I could find, for a few reasons.

First, the sole on this make them good for various activities.  I do kickboxing, step, plyometrics, rebounding, and dance cardio workouts, and the sole allows easy pivoting and movement for each one.  Secondly, the inside cushioning is really soft and supportive, especially if you have high arches, as I do.  They feel wonderful on -- like walking on soft marshmallows.

That being said, they have almost no support for lateral and plyometric movements.  A few pairs of shoes I tried on (I'm looking at you, Nike and Reebok crosstrainers!) had zero side support, and one sales associate at my local sporting goods store talked me out of an expensive pair by another brand, letting me know that it wouldn't give me the support I needed.  This Ryka pair is better than the others I had tried on, but it doesn't provide quite enough support on the outer sides of the toe box for lateral movements, so I've found that my feet move around in them a lot.  Because of that, my knee tendonitis has returned since I started wearing these a few weeks ago.  At this point, I will probably use them just for strength training, and not for cardio.

I've bought Rykas a few times in the past, after learning that one of my favorite fitness DVD gurus Cathe Freidrich uses them, and have always been happy with them. The wider toe box provides good comfort, and, since Rykas are also designed just for women, they supposedly take into account the Q-angle of your quads, so that your knees aren't needlessly torquing out.

As for sizing, my past Rykas have run a bit small and some reviews on a different website said to order a half-size larger, so I ordered an 8 instead of my usual 7.5, and the fit is great. I have about a thumb's distance between my toes and the end of the shoe, which is supposed to be the right amount of room to leave in athletic shoes.

One other area of note is that these also have an instability padding built into the foam.  They keep you a bit unbalanced, which might not be the best thing if you want a more stable platform.

I'll update my review after I've had these a few weeks, but, for now, they work fine as long as I'm not doing high-impact cardio -- and I just hope that they don't get discontinued, as all my favorite athletic shoes seem to do!