The most negative review seems to be the most useful, but even at that the guy gave it 3 out of 5 stars:
Used with a light camera for backpacking and general walking around.
The good: reasonably light weight and well finished, everything operates smoothly and legs and head lock firmly.
The bad:
1. With lowest leg sections extended or the column up vibrations are easily excited and take many seconds to dampen. This may go with the territory in this weight/price range it's a real limitation - so keep them down, use shutter delay and mirror lock up, etc.
To some extent, this is the nature of aluminum tripods and should be expected for an aluminum tripod which is lighter in weight. Using shutter delay and mirror lock up is just a good practice with any tripod regardless of how good it is.
2. The ball shifts some upon final tightening, enough to skew a shot - compensating ahead of time helps as does aligning the head so the shift can be corrected with one leg. Others of this model in the store also were like this. One can get better heads, but for much more money and they're heavier.
Even at the starting price point, a good ball head will cost you more than the entire price for this tripod. I wouldn't expect much from the head at this price. Some very good ball heads aren't that heavy, but they are pricey.
3. Pay attention to the knobs, it would be easy to inadvertently loosen the camera plate. This is easily corrected by wrapping the plate knob with cloth tape, but it would be better if this knob were a different shape or texture than the alignment knobs.
4. Separate foot pads and spikes require a tool to change, but it does come with both.
Overall it's a useful product but be aware of it's limitations.
I'd say the reviews on B&H are more valuable than say Amazon or some other place. Just based on those I'd say it's a pretty good tripod for the price. This one looks interesting in that it can serve as both a tripod and a monopod. If both work well, this would be a great feature as it would prevent you from having to pack both and allow you to easily use the same head for both. That being said I'm a pretty big believer in not skimping when it comes to tripods, and especially "travel" tripods. A tripod needs to be rock solid. I've never bought a "travel" tripod per se. My old alluminum Bogen (Manfrotto) 3001 is not a big studio tripod, but in terms of modern carbon fiber "travel" tripods it's a hulk. I have traveled all over the world with it. The Bogen 3000 series tripods set the standards for decades because they are built like a tank and rock solid. You can get them on ebay in the $50-100 price range. When buying a used tripod, consider only the legs unless it just happens to have the exact head you want. Plan on buying the head separately and consider the head that comes with the tripod to be a throwaway item or something to be resold on ebay.
http://photo.net/learn/nature/bogtri
I've never used the tripod you are mentioning, so take my advice for what it's worth, but I think if you're going to go with an aluminum tripod (the obvious reason for going aluminum is to save money) then go with one that is built like a tank because the extra bulk is going to make up for the shortcomings of aluminum. If you want a lighter tripod, go with carbon fiber because the strength and dampening properties of carbon fiber means a lighter tripod can still be an effective support. This assumes you're going to be using big heavy pro lenses. If you're not using big heavy pro lenses, you can get by with a cheaper tripod. When you put a big and long piece of glass on your camera, the shortcomings of cheaper tripods and heads become readily apparent.
This article is a bit dated, but is a must read for anyone who is looking for a good tripod:
http://bythom.com/support.htm
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