Right out of the box this is a 3 star product. After you acquire some extra tools this thing works much better.

This thing comes with some hooks and rubber bands for ????? Well I guess you should use the rubber bands to tie your hair back. The hooks can be useful. I use them to hold the knitting up when it starts to hit the floor. That is only temporary, you need a cast on comb and some weights for this thing and a couple of lace combs for smaller pieces. I'm still trying to find some good prices on those. I did manage to snag some claw weights on ebay for cheap and those are a godsend on the edges.

The wax disc is a pain in the rear, most people suggest using birthday candles or the wax crayons you get in easter egg kits. Those are excellent alternatives.

 I highly reccomend making the "elf sweater" in the "meet your bond" tutorials on youtube on Cheryl Brunette's channel [...]. This will give you a good starter lesson on how to use the machine. It proves to be more understandable than the video and book that they send with the machine. (although the book is a good quick reference when you're making up a pattern on your own.)

After that there are plenty of other tutorials on youtube and there are even some groups you can find if you search google.

Study Study Study up on how to use this thing before you actually use it. You're going to make tons of simple mistakes at first using this. Getting other accessories from other knitting machines will help you tremendously. There are also videos on youtube and instructables that teach you how to make your own accessories for the machine. If you're getting this thing for 100 bucks less than retail its worth it to put that extra 100 bucks back into it to make this machine work properly.

Little gripe: the row counter on mine came broken, which blows because they cost an extra 30 to replace. (I didn't want to send the whole thing back) This piece is pretty much necessary if you are as scatter brained as I am and you want to make something quickly and don't want to stop every row to make a tally.