I understand  you get what you pay for and this was cheap. Aesthetically it is great and will go with a lot of contemporary furniture. The knobs are clear (they appear in the photo). The see through material is not glass but cheap plastic and you need to be careful when assembling as to not  scratch/bend it. I will say the assembly on this was much easier than the $300+ upscale set of tables of purchased form Wayfair. We have several heavy books on the top shelf and have not had any issues with this.