I'm what they call a "serious amateur" when it comes to photography, which puts me somewhere between a "casual shooter" and a true professional. I know my way around tripods and monopods alike, starting out with the old Silk line of tripods and now am partial to Manfrotto. Of course those tripods are 5-6 times the price of the Concept, so it is only reasonable that I should modify my expectations accordingly.I "grew up" with pan and tilt tripod heads, have never been in love with ball heads, so I was looking forward to having this type of head again. It does work in the classic sense, offering moving and locking on each of the three axes. The inside of the center column can be pulled out and extended to be used as a monopod, making use of a twist-loc system. The tripod has a nice robust feel to it, easy to confuse it's makeup to be aluminum. The product manual refers to this as a "plastic tripod" and also states its material to be "ABS Environmental Resin". The only metal appears to be the 1/4 stud attaching the head and the rivet hinges allowing the legs to be spread. The quick attach plate seems to be secure when locked in place, but there is no secondary lock to prevent accidental openings and the plate does not appear to be compatible with any of the more common such plates. I greatly prefer the flip leg locks for the speed of set up over that of the twist variety, but there is no adjustment of the locks available, so at some point that will be a problem. The included phone mount is a clamp/screw type which allows one to determine just how much holding power to apply, as opposed to the usual spring loaded variety.If this is all you can afford or justify then I think you will be well served for a time. Eventually the leg locks will begin to slip as they all do of this type and that will probably be the determining factor to force you to move on to something else. As far as a tripod goes, it should help you get the shots you want, and the ABS makes this essentially waterproof and probably washable/cleanable if dropped in the mud. I think most will consider this serviceable, certainly a safe choice as a utility or backup tripod, and can serve as your main unit in a pinch.