Good product. My WORST assembly experience
I bought this unit as a birthday gift based on the positive reviews. As far as the finished product goes, the reviews are spot on, a very nice cabinet for the money. I do agree what there should be a light in the lower section and the include light for the top is pretty basic. I didn't bother installing it. I'm going to do something customer so there will be LED lights in both sections.
I've purchased numerous items with assembly required (most here) and this item was hands down the worst I've had period. The cam locks and dowel pins that assemble the larger parts of the cabinet were pretty straight forward. I was surprised there was no glue. The problem was installing the hinges to the doors and the cabinet. The pre-drilled holes were about half as big as needed, the wrong angle and not deep enough. I striped the head off 3 screws trying to get them tightened. Finally I grabbed my drill and started drilling them out until I found a size that let me fully tighten the screws. Luckily they are generous and provide a lot of extra hardware.
When I see parts with the white identifying tags on them, the first thing I think of is how easy is it to get them off. These were terrible. I actually broke the nails on both thumbs scratching of the letters, up arrows and the tempered glass stickers not to mention taking the time to use a goo removed on the adhesive residue. Again this was a lot worse than any other item. It takes 30-45 days for a cargo container to travel from China to the U.S. I'm guessing this one must have done it in the summer and got extra baked on. I'm pretty mechanically inclined with a good array of tools and my assembly time was still around 5-6 hours which is about twice what I think it should have been.
I didn't really like the "orange-ish" caps that cover the cam lock holes. The holes are positioned so they aren't that easy to see in the first place, so adding caps that don't match the oak wood just seems to draw attention to them.
I think there was a review where someone had trouble with the boards that hold the mirrors in place. Mine was fine, there was plenty of screws that hold it in place.
My unit had some scratches on the mirrors and wood that I'm going to contract customer service about. As this was a birthday gift I didn't have the luxury of not putting it together while I waited for replacements. I have always read in the product reviews here that they are very good about getting parts replaced, this will be my first time doing so.
My "NO" vote for recommending to a friend is due to the fact that a "normal" person would end up returning this or breaking it due to the difficulty with the hinges. Otherwise it's a great looking displace case.