Viavito Sina Elliptical Cross Trainer Review

If you’ve not heard of the brand Viavito before then it’s not entirely surprising as while they’ve been around for donkey’s years in most other parts of the world, they’ve only been in the UK for a few years. But they’re growing fast and from what we know and have seen of this brand, it’s got some serious industry heavyweights behind it. Their stated modus operandi is to tear up the rule book and inject some fresh thinking into the sporting goods market.

We were keen to review Viavito’s Sina elliptical trainer to see if what we’ve heard is all talk or if this particular brand is going to live up to the hype! So, we once we took delivery of our test unit of the ‘Sina’ elliptical cross trainer we jumped straight into assembling it. The process is very similar to many machines we’ve put together in the past and took around 45 minutes.

In terms of look, the Sina has a contemporary design and looks rather sleek in black with highlights of red. Certainly, it makes a nice change from the plethora of cream and grey coloured cross trainers flooding the market.

The Sina cross trainer is mains powered and offers a computer-controlled resistance mechanism with an impressive 32 levels available. It is well worth noting that the top level of resistance on this Viavito is pretty hard and a just short workout at top resistance left your reviewer out of breath! With its relatively compact footprint, we’re pleased to see that Viavito hasn’t gone for a short 13 or 14-inch stride on the Sina and have stuck to a 15-inch stride length. This, coupled with a hefty 9kg flywheel weight makes this a rather pleasant rear-drive elliptical to use. Interestingly, the stride feels more natural and with a higher momentum than quite a number of machines we’ve tested with higher advertised specs such as flywheel weight. The machine itself weighs a hefty 47kg and this means that the Sina shares a characteristic of many of the higher priced elliptical trainers in that despite the transport wheels, it’s not that easy to move around. On the other hand, having a heavy machine under your feet to support a user’s body weight is critical to a stable striding experience! That weight and stability also have a noticeable, positive impact on how it feels to use. Jump on the Sina and start pedalling and it becomes very clear very quickly that this isn’t a cheap run-of-the-mill entry-level elliptical. The whole cycle is smooth all the way through, in no doubt largely down to that flywheel but it’s also down to the other internal components such as the bearings. For a cross trainer at this price point, it’s surprisingly smooth and quiet with no discernable squeaks or creaks which adds to the feeling that the Sina, despite its price and size, is a very well manufactured quality machine.

So: it’s a nice looking machine that’s got a decent stride length, nice smooth motion and a spread of resistance levels on offer that’d satisfy both the unfit beginner as well as challenge a trained athlete! What about that all-important console?

Apart from looking stylish, the console is what really differentiates the Sina elliptical from pretty much all the other ellipticals currently on the market at under £500. The first detail that we noticed at the back of the console (spotted when we were assembling it) was that there was a little switch for “KM or ML”! Finally, a low-priced elliptical on the market that can be switched between metric and imperial!

But that’s just the start: the use of a dial on the console is superior to its competitors that mostly have buttons for ‘up’ and ‘down’ that require repeated pressing to make large adjustments to the resistance levels, which can be just a touch frustrating. The dial on the Sina makes this change far quicker and easier than buttons are. Reach out, spin the dial with your forefinger and voila, you’ve just gone from min to max resistance in the blink of an eye. It may sound like a small thing, but in terms of operating this elliptical, it makes a significant difference for the better. The display is a backlit, colour LCD of a good size which makes getting workout feedback a doddle. We’re a big fan of user profiles that allow the age, gender, weight and height of a user to be entered for a console to produce personalised feedback such as more accurate estimations of calorie consumption and the Sina offers 4 user profiles. Surprisingly for a machine at this price point, there is a Polar compatible heart rate receiver built into the console (which works with any uncoded chest strap) to provide accurate heart-rate information and there are heart rate programmes on offer as well.

Like many other machines, there are 12 pre-set programmes and the profiles are usefully printed on the console to assist selection. Unlike the majority of other machines though, each of these programmes can be used at 16 different difficulty levels and for a user-defined duration. This is a pretty neat feature, as it means that the machine can provide relevant exercise difficulty to users of different fitness levels.

As always, it’s good to see a WATT control programme present. Whilst this is typically only used by users that are recovering from an injury, it’s presence indicates that the machine has been calibrated as an ergometer which is a reassurance on the quality of the manufacturing process.

The build quality and the attention to detail paid in so many aspects of this machine and the way it feels to use all indicate that skimping on the components hasn’t taken place and should there be any problems a 2 years warranty is available (machine does need to be registered post purchase on the Viavito website to get the 2nd year).

We believe that with this elliptical, Viavito has delivered an absolute cracker of a machine. The arrival of the Sina is raising the bar for performance, features and quality at this price point.