By Jack Atkins, Home Gym Equipment Specialist · Updated 7 August 2026
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Adjustable dumbbells are the single best value purchase in a small home gym, and the market has split into two camps: the established names charging a premium for a proven mechanism, and a growing pack of Amazon brands undercutting them by a hundred pounds or more. ATIVAFIT sits in the second camp, and this 2 to 25kg pair at around £263 is one of the more convincing arguments that the gap has narrowed.
What you get is a pair of dial-selector dumbbells covering ten weight settings per hand, in a metal-handled, orange-shelled package that replaces roughly ten pairs of fixed dumbbells and a rack. Whether that is the right buy depends almost entirely on how strong you already are.
How we review
This review draws on ATIVAFIT's published specifications, the patterns that recur across verified owner reviews on Amazon UK, and our experience of how selectorised dumbbell mechanisms behave over time. We have not run a multi-year endurance test on this exact pair, so we have stuck to repeated, consistent findings rather than isolated complaints, and we flag where the evidence is thin.
This is a set for someone building or upgrading a home gym in a room where a dumbbell rack is out of the question. Flats, spare bedrooms, a corner of the lounge. The pitch is space: two dumbbells and two trays instead of a wall of iron.
It suits intermediate lifters and below. If your working weight for dumbbell rows or chest press is already north of 25kg, this set will frustrate you inside a month and you should be looking at the 32kg and 40kg options in our best adjustable dumbbells guide instead. If you are training for general strength and muscle at home, 25kg a hand covers almost everything you will program.
The handle is the part worth paying attention to. ATIVAFIT has gone with a contoured full-metal bar with a knurled, anti-slip texture rather than the moulded plastic sleeve you often find at this price, and it makes a real difference once your palms get sweaty on the fifteenth rep of a row. It also feels less like a toy, which matters more than it should when you are about to press something over your face.
The selector itself is the standard dial arrangement: seat the dumbbell in its tray, twist the dial to your number, lift it out and the plates you did not select stay behind. It clicks audibly at each setting, which is a small thing that saves you squinting at the indicator mid-session.
Where every selectorised dumbbell compromises is the shell. The plates sit in moulded housings, and those housings are what stop this being a drop-and-forget piece of kit. Treat them as you would a piece of electronics that happens to weigh 25kg: set it down, do not throw it. Owners who ignore this are the ones posting photographs of cracked plate ends.
| Weight range | 2kg to 25kg per dumbbell |
|---|---|
| Settings | 10 per dumbbell |
| Average increment | Approx 2.5kg per click |
| Total weight | 50kg for the pair |
| Adjustment | Quick-select dial, dumbbell seated in tray |
| Handle | Contoured metal, anti-slip texture |
| Supplied as | Pair, with trays |
| Finish | Smoky orange shell, black handle |
The 2.5kg jump is the specification that will shape your training more than any other. On compound lifts it is fine: nobody notices a 2.5kg step on a goblet squat or a dumbbell bench press. On lateral raises, rear delt flyes and any other small isolation movement, going from 7kg to 9.5kg is a 35 percent jump, and you will feel it. The workaround most people settle on is to change reps and tempo rather than weight for those lifts, which is a legitimate approach: for muscle growth, load matters much less than people assume once sets are taken close to failure, though strength gains do favour heavier loads (Schoenfeld and colleagues, low versus high load meta-analysis).
Length is the other adjustment. A selectorised dumbbell at its top setting is longer than a 25kg fixed dumbbell, because all the plates live on the same handle regardless. On flat pressing that means the ends can catch your ribs at the bottom of the rep, and on a narrow bench it means being careful about how you kick them up into position. It is not a fault so much as physics, and every dial dumbbell has it. A decent weight bench with a bit of width helps.
Changing weight is genuinely quick. Two or three seconds a dumbbell, which is quick enough that drop sets stay useful rather than turning into rest periods.
Three things would stop me recommending this set to certain people.
The 25kg ceiling is the obvious one. It is enough for a long time if you are starting out, and it is not enough if you already train seriously. Dumbbell rows and chest presses are usually the first lifts to run out of road.
The no-drop rule constrains how you can train to failure. On heavy dumbbell bench press, the safe finish to a hard set is dumping the weights, and you cannot do that here. In practice you either stop a rep short, use a bench you can lower onto, or train pressing with a barbell and save the dumbbells for everything else.
Brand longevity is the unknown. ATIVAFIT has a growing UK presence but nothing like the decade-plus track record of Bowflex, and if a dial mechanism fails in year four, the spare parts question is harder to answer. That risk is priced in, and it is why this costs less.
At roughly £263 for the pair, this lands well below the Bowflex SelectTech 552 and a long way below a NUOBELL set, while offering a slightly higher top weight than the 552 and a better handle than most of the sub-£200 crowd. Compared with buying fixed dumbbells, it is not close: ten pairs of hex dumbbells up to 25kg would cost more, take up a wall, and need a rack on top.
The main competition is at the same price point from brands like HAKENO and TRIOBLADE, which offer 24kg with more settings. If finer increments matter more to you than the extra kilo, look at those. If handle feel and a clean dial action matter more, ATIVAFIT wins.
Strength work twice a week covering the major muscle groups is the baseline the NHS recommends for adults (physical activity guidelines), and one pair of adjustable dumbbells next to the sofa removes most of the excuses. Pair them with a goblet squat and dumbbell shoulder press routine and you have a full-body programme with no other equipment.
Check price on AmazonTwenty-five kilograms per hand, across ten dial settings starting at 2kg. That gives you an average jump of a bit over 2.5kg per click, and a 50kg total for the pair. For most home lifters doing presses, rows, curls and lunges that ceiling lasts a long time, though a strong trainee will outgrow it on rows and heavy pressing.
Not quite, and the price reflects that. The Bowflex SelectTech 552 has a longer track record, a wider dealer network for spares and a more refined selector. What ATIVAFIT gives you is a metal handle rather than a plastic-sleeved one, a slightly higher top weight than the 552, and a lower price. For a home gym rather than a commercial one, the gap is smaller than the brand names suggest.
No, and this applies to every dial-selector dumbbell on the market. The internal mechanism and the plastic plate housings are not built to survive being dropped from shoulder height onto a hard floor. Set them down under control, and put rubber matting underneath if you train in a garage.
Yes. Like all selectorised dumbbells, the dumbbell has to be seated properly in its tray for the dial to disengage and re-engage the plates. Trying to force the dial when the dumbbell is not seated is the single most common way people damage these things.
For most people, for years. Twenty-five kilos in each hand covers goblet squats, split squats, lunges, chest presses, shoulder presses, curls and most row variations. If you already row 35kg dumbbells at a commercial gym, you will hit the ceiling immediately and should look at a 32kg or 40kg system instead.
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