Mountain Bike Action's current issue has a shoot-out of 7 bikes all under $700.00. They rode all types of bikes, a Redline Mono-Cog a Kona Out of Bounds, the FS Giant, a Specialized hardtail, the 4500, a Gary Fisher Tassahara, and a Jamis Dakar FS.
Granted you must take a mag's review with a grain of salt, but the 4500 was in there. They did NOT review the Giant because they just did a review of the Iguana about 2 issues ago. They chose to review the Warp instead.
Regardless, since this is about your price range, it may be worth reading the article.
BTW, the Jamis FS won the shoot-out for the best all around bike for the $$$$.
L8R
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