Reviews of similar products note assembly takes about 2 1/2 hours. It took my wife and I well over 4 hours, adding in the drawer assembly time (admittedly, with some re-assembly; see below) . Also, you definately need 2 people to assemble this futon, as per the instructions.
The instructions didn't tell you when to put in the dowel joints, which necessitated our having to unbolt/unscrew the matress frame when we realized we had some extra parts. Thus, before you add the matress-frame end boards and screw them in, make sure you insert all the dowel joints. The dowel joints are 1 inch long by about 1/4 inch diameter wooden-dowel sticks that have chamfered (beveled) ends and tiny grooves or "flutes". There should be 16 of them. They go in the top and bottom pre-drilled holes at both ends of the 4 long boards that frame the matress-slat assembly.
Note that the drawers don't have tracks, they just sit on wheels on the floor under the frame. Even so, when they are pushed in they look fine and fit pretty snugly.
If I had to do it again, I'm not sure I'd spend the extra $$$ for this model just to get the fold out tables, but that's up to you. They do look nice and are quite stable when set in the up position.
BE AWARE: the instructions indicate there is a 250-pound weight limit! Who would have guessed that for a full-sized mattress futon? My wife and I have simultaneously sat on the couch with no problems so far, but we haven't both slept on it. Not sure I'd feel comfortable doing that with 2 average-weighing adults.
I didn't give it a higher rating, largely because of the surprizing 250-pound weight limit and the dowel-silent instructions. Otherwise, we're pretty satisfied. It looks nice, as is fairly depicted by the photograph.