Telescope Reviews: Sky-Watcher AZ4 alt-az mount a good value?

I've seen it at two different dealers. It seems to be very well made. The locking mechanism seemed to work well so if you have a scope where a heavy eyepiece is removed, you can lock it down first and not fear that the scope will pitch for or aft as was the case with the Orion SkyView dual-headed AZ mount that I had to return.

At one dealer they had a SkyWatcher 120ED mounted on it and it seemed to handle the weight as well as the length although I wasn't able to view through the scope to see how much vibration occurs.

The movements were smooth in both the horizontal and the vertical. And I liked the fact it comes with a panning handle.

About the only thing that bothered me was the cheap stuck-on strip around the base of the mount that contains reference numbers for positioning. On both mounts that tape was coming lose. If I bought one, I'd peel it off. It's pretty much worthless.

What cracked me up was both mounts I saw had on the top of one of the legs, a stuck-on 'N' for north. It appeared they just took the tubular steel legs off a EQ mount where having a reference for north is necessary. As everyone knows, it's totally unnecessary on an AZ mount.

My only worry would be after time the bearings which are teflon could wear down. Other than that, it looks like a good product especially for the money.