MISFIT PHASE

With its unmarked watch face, the Mist Phase is a minimalist’s dream — save for its chunkiness. To be fair, at approx. 13mm it’s around the same thickness as the other three hybrids, but without a tapered back like the Steel HR and the Vivomove, the Phase just feels thicker. It’s not easy to tell the time on the Phase with its unmarked watch face and thin hands, and more importantly, there’s no way to tell the date.

One of the best things about the Phase is that the straps can be easily snapped out and changed, plus it works with any 20mm NATO-style eld band. If you decide on the sports strap, you should know that the one I tested came out of its box with a rank plastic smell, which took a couple of days to dissipate.

The Phase can give you up to nine possible notications, for basics like calls and apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. You can’t choose from as many services as the Fossil Q Nate, but you get more than the Q Nate’s six notication slots.

A small colored dot at the six o’clock position cycles through the colors which you can customize for each notication, but with only six colors, you’ll end up repeating. And I could never remember which color was supposed to represent which notication.

I wished there was a way to increase the notications’ vibration strength, like on the Q Nate, as the Phase’s vibrations are weak enough to miss at times. The Phase handles call notications oddly, instead of buzzing for as long as a call is coming in, it only buzzes at the start, and stops even when the phone is still ringing.

The Phase is a pretty basic activity tracker, it can track your steps, calories, sports and sleep. Step tracking accuracy was similar to the rest; not accurate to the step but somewhere in the general area. The Phase breaks sleep down into stages, like light and restful, and was generally correct at automatically guessing when I went to sleep and got up. I liked how the Phase reminds you to move after you’ve been idle too long, by buzzing your wrist and waving the watch hands around.

The Mist Phase is a decent hybrid, it has the second-best notication support and basic activity tracking. I also loved how it automatically adjusts time based on my phone’s time zone. But I could never get over how chunky it felt.

• Wide range of smart noti cations • Straps can be easily swapped out • Reminds you to get up and move • Looks and feels thick • Tough to remember noti cation colors • Call noti cation only buzzes for a while

The Phase has roughly the same thickness as the rest of the hybrids, but its design makes it feel thicker.

The Mist App is beautiful, but doesn’t come with a lot of directions for the watch.