I say if you add it with both treadmill and weight training will benefit you more. Also change your diet and you will see a noticeable change in your physical characteristic.

 

that elliptical will be fine, with your price range. If you get up to the $1500, to $2000 range... that's where your getting more bang for your buck.

 

Any excercise where your heart rate whether it be treadmill, elliptical, or bike will be fine. Dont be concerned about how many calories you burn during the session as following a good diet and weight program will take care of itself.

The reason why I dont like cheap treadmills is because most of them shale when u run on it and also the canvas part where u run on gets stuck and u "trip". Anyone who has one of these cheap treadmills will know what i mean.

 

do a search for HITT training, lot of ways to really boost the time you spend on cardio days in the gym.

Back to the original question, personally I really like the precor machine's but they are not in your budget, true makes a decent machine for about 800 or so depending on the discount that you can get.

the biggest problems that I have with the lower end machines is that they dont have enough room for the speeds that I run at, or the power to stay at anything under say 7:30 mile or so. (point I made up in my head). Personally I have always been a elipitical person due to a knee injury from HS and a fused lower back. (Stupid drunk drivers.)