Pinifarina Sintesi Hybrid Review: Style Over Substance

Worth When Reviewed

$329

Finest Costs At the moment: Pinifarina Sintesi Hybrid

$299

Pininfarina isn’t a family title in smartwatch phrases, however in case you love automobiles, then it’s a design model chances are you’ll recognise for being intently related to the likes of Alfa Romeo, Rolls-Royce Royce and Cadillac.

The Pininfarina Sintesi Hybrid is the agency’s newest hybrid wearable that’s constructed by Hong Kong-based smartwatch maker Globics and desires to supply up a viable various to the likes of the Withings ScanWatch and Garmin Vivomove, providing options like coronary heart charge monitoring, notifications, sports activities monitoring wrapped in an analogue watch design.

The variety of hybrid smartwatches stays small, particularly after Fossil’s exit from the smartwatch house, making room for the Sintesi Hybrid to offer followers of this model a substitute for the large manufacturers.

Design & Construct

• One dimension choice
• Waterproof as much as 50 metres
• Non-compulsory straps out there

The largest attraction of sporting a hybrid smartwatch is that it seems, at a look, such as you’re sporting a daily watch. So, how properly does the Sintesi pull that off? I’d say fairly properly general.

Very similar to the Withings ScanWatch 2 and ScanWatch Nova, there’s an exercise dial on the backside of the face and a small digital display on the prime.

Mike Sawh

For starters, you’ve acquired the form of supplies you’d anticipate to see on a dressy analogue watch. There’s a 316L stainless-steel case that could be a little on the chunky aspect, so might not be the form of heft these with slimmer wrists will all admire.

It solely is available in a 44mm case dimension and all the 4 color choices and designs scream that this can be a watch made predominantly for males.

I had the leather-based model of the Sintesi Hybrid, which will get you a real Italian leather-based strap to match as much as that chunky case. It’s completely a high-quality leather-based strap, however was a bit too large for my skinny wrists. Thankfully, it’s simply detachable and meant I may swap in a spare strap instead for a greater match, notably when sporting it for train.

You even have the choice of selecting up different straps that allow you to swap that leather-based for one thing extra workout-friendly or switching to a metallic bracelet look.

Mike Sawh

As a bundle, it’s waterproof as much as 50 metres, which suggests you possibly can take it for a swim and bathe, although it received’t monitor the previous.

I’m blissful to say it did survive a dip within the sea and my native swimming pool however I might recommend maintaining the leather-based strap away from water if attainable.

Show & Controls 

• AMOLED sub-display
• Sapphire crystal glass
• Rotating crown

The best way the Sintesi Hybrid shows its smarts is in a really comparable vogue to most different hybrids. You’ll discover a small sub-display planted onto the standard watch face.

There are literally two sub-displays right here, with the underside being an analogue dial that’s capable of exhibit your exercise monitoring progress simply as Withings does.

Mike Sawh

The one up prime is a monochrome AMOLED show the place the decision isn’t specified by Pinifarina. It’s comparatively vivid and is activated if you press the center crown button on the best aspect of the watch case.

That crown button may also be rotated to maneuver by way of screens with push buttons above and beneath to let you choose modes and settings or skip again a display.

Just like the watch case, the crown and pushers are additionally constituted of metal. The underside button may be customised to supply a shortcut to key options, so in case you don’t need to scroll by way of screens to remotely snap an image, there’s a faster and simpler option to get there and do it.

Software program & Options 

• Works with Android and iOS
• View notifications and climate forecasts
• Take smartphone footage and management music playback

Like different hybrid smartwatches, the Sintesi is about supplying you with some however not all of what you’d anticipate to get on a Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 or a Google Pixel Watch 3. If you’d like funds or the flexibility to obtain apps, that’s not what you’re going to get right here.

Core smartwatch options lie in supplying you with the flexibility to view app and name notifications on the show, although issues understandably really feel a bit cramped. You’ve acquired climate forecasts, the flexibility to remotely take footage out of your paired smartphone and play and pause music taking part in in your cellphone.

There’s additionally an all the time helpful discover my watch mode if you’ve forgotten the place you’ve taken your watch off.

One concern I’ve with how smartwatch meets analogue watch is that, in contrast to Garmin and Withings rivals, the Sintesi doesn’t shift the analogue palms out of the best way from the show.

Mike Sawh

That’s a rookie error and makes for an ungainly expertise when both hand is across the 11, 12 and 1 marks, not to mention each palms.

Outdoors of that, issues labored as marketed. I used it primarily with an Android cellphone and spent a while paired to an iPhone as properly. Notifications popped up in a speedy vogue, the distant digital camera characteristic was straightforward to make use of and the gorgeous fundamental music playback controls labored positive as properly.

Nothing right here is exclusive, so it’s actually about sticking to many of the options we already see on different hybrids.

Health & Monitoring 

• Tracks sleep and steps
• Optical sensor for coronary heart charge and SpO2 monitoring
• Linked GPS out there

The Sintesi does behave like a health and basic wellness tracker and can even provide some sports activities monitoring whereas leaning in your cellphone to benefit from that added help.

There’s an optical PPG sensor like most smartwatches to trace coronary heart charge all through the day and provide on-the-spot measurements of SpO2 (blood oxygen) ranges. It’ll monitor day by day steps, monitor energetic intervals of your day and provide up estimate day by day energy burned. There’s sleep monitoring to supply information like length and sleep levels out of your most up-to-date night time’s sleep that may be seen on the watch.

Mike Sawh

If you wish to monitor what number of cups of water you drink or regulate your weight, that is data you possibly can manually add to the Pininfarina companion smartphone app. There are additionally guided respiratory workout routines on provide that ship vibrating nudges to immediate you when to inhale and exhale to get your self again to a extra relaxed state.

Digging into the exercise monitoring, I didn’t see something to recommend information like day by day step counts and energetic minutes had been wildly inaccurate. It was usually 200-500 steps inside comparable monitoring from two different health trackers. Calorie burn estimates nevertheless, had been considerably decrease than what these different gadgets reported.

Coronary heart charge information tended to report increased common readings than I’d anticipate to see, whereas resting coronary heart charge was inside 5-6 bpm of two different dependable coronary heart charge trackers I wore it alongside. Most coronary heart charge readings typically trended increased for the day, which leaves some query marks over the reliability of the center charge monitoring generally.

Mike Sawh

Delving into sleep information and there’s fairly a pleasant breakdown of your night time’s stats with sleep scores, sleep levels and it typically reported longer intervals of sleep, roughly 45-50 minutes longer than two different sleep trackers. Sleep scores generally painted an analogous image of our sleep as properly. It was usually the sunshine sleep stage the place it tended to report longer intervals spent in that exact interval of sleep.

There are some extra basic insights on provide revolving round sleep cycles and sleep phases that assist to offer the expertise of monitoring sleep a extra rounded really feel.

Sports activities monitoring extends to letting you monitor a variety of actions, together with working, strolling, biking with profiles for sports activities like cricket, soccer and actions like yoga additionally out there. The related GPS help helps to make outside monitoring extra dependable and that helps for actions like working and strolling.

You do have the flexibility to share information with Strava and Google and Apple Well being, so your information isn’t locked in a single place. I’d say the efficiency of that monitoring is in line with different hybrid smartwatches.

You’re not getting sports activities watch-level of efficiency, however for an informal run or experience, it’s as much as the duty.

Mike Sawh

An even bigger concern for me was the frequent cases when the sub-display turned off and the watch motion stopped, usually throughout sports activities monitoring, nevertheless it additionally occurred at different instances as properly. Sometimes, placing the watch again on the charger solved the difficulty, however that’s hardly a great resolution, notably if you’ve left the home.

When you received’t discover the form of coaching evaluation you’d affiliate with a extra totally fledged smartwatch or sports activities watch, it does delve into a brand new wellness metric we’ve seen on different smartwatches. That’s analysing your readiness to deal with your day.

It’s stress, sleep high quality to generate. It doesn’t really feel massively personalised and once more is extra basic steering to remind you to get sufficient sleep and maintaining stress ranges low at essential elements of the day, like earlier than heading to mattress.

Battery Life & Charging

• As much as 30 days battery life
• Awkward charger

One of many greatest appeals of proudly owning a hybrid smartwatch over a full smartwatch is getting (loads) extra battery life to play with.

There’s the promise of as much as 30 days of battery life, although that’s going to depend upon how heavy your utilization is or whether or not you’re turning on options like steady coronary heart charge monitoring and utilizing health and sports activities options frequently. 

Mike Sawh

I discovered that day by day drop off was up across the 10% mark and in a single day it was round 4-5%. That may point out it’s shorter than the utmost 30 days promised, however nonetheless reveals it has the aptitude to go greater than per week, which I can get on board with.

What I didn’t actually get on board with was the USB-C charging cradle. It may be a bit awkward to clip on and I’d favor a less complicated option to energy issues again up once more.

Worth & Availability

The Pininfarina Sintesi is accessible in 4 totally different seems, with all fashions costing the identical £329/$329, making it barely cheaper than selecting up an Apple Watch Sequence 10 for comparability.

You should purchase it from the official retailer in addition to retailers like Amazon and Amazon US.

It’s after all higher to check with different high-profile hybrid smartwatches and on that entrance, you possibly can choose up the Garmin Vivomove for lower than £200/$200 or simply below £300/$300 within the case of the Vivomove Development.

Elsewhere, the Withings ScanWatch 2 prices barely extra at £319/$349, whereas the cheaper ScanWatch Gentle sits at £229/$249.95.

You possibly can positively spend much less on a hybrid smartwatch elsewhere, however the worth of the Sintesi is basically in line with different hybrids.

Do you have to purchase the Pininfarina Sintesi Hybrid?

The Pininfarina Sintesi largely ticks the important thing containers so far as what you’d anticipate from a hybrid smartwatch. It seems nice, provides a pleasant mixture of smartwatch in addition to health and wellness-focused options and received’t have you ever charging it each couple of days.

So far as bettering the competitors, whether or not that’s on the mix of analogue and related components, options and providing an app that’s a step up on its rivals, I believe it has a bit of labor to do. Particularly on the software program entrance, whereas the problems I had with the show randomly turning off and the watch face freezing are removed from ultimate.

I’d say going for a Withings hybrid will get you extra unisex design attraction together with a a lot sleeker software program expertise. Garmin’s hybrids additionally do a nicer job of bringing smartwatch and analogue design collectively.

General, it simply doesn’t do sufficient as a bundle to suggest it over rivals.

Specs

• 44mm Stainless-steel
• Sapphire glass 
• AMOLED sub-display
• As much as 30-day battery life 
• Linked GPS
• PPG sensor for coronary heart charge, stress, SpO2 monitoring
• Waterproof as much as 50 metres
• Works with Android and iOS