How good is the camera, smartphone mirroring or phone in your new SUV? Good question! Paul Maric compares the top 12 medium SUVs to see which has the best tech across a number of tests. The results may surprise you!
Medium SUV off-road comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsEFOH7KP-Q
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Infotainment speed test 0:40
Bluetooth audio quality test 3:07
Smartphone and camera quality test 4:41
Sportage/Tucson 5:12
CX5 5:32
CRV 5:51
Rav4 6:08
Outlander 6:37
Forester 7:00
Haval 7:25
Jeep 7:58
X-Trail 8:17
Tiguan 8:36
Escape 8:53
Verdict 9:39
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#suv #tech #comparison
Medium SUV off-road comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsEFOH7KP-Q
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Infotainment speed test 0:40
Bluetooth audio quality test 3:07
Smartphone and camera quality test 4:41
Sportage/Tucson 5:12
CX5 5:32
CRV 5:51
Rav4 6:08
Outlander 6:37
Forester 7:00
Haval 7:25
Jeep 7:58
X-Trail 8:17
Tiguan 8:36
Escape 8:53
Verdict 9:39
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#suv #tech #comparison
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So, are you in the market for a medium-sized SUV?
00:04 And do you like your technology? Well, if you've answered yes to both of those,
00:07 I have assembled the best-selling medium SUVs in Australia,
00:11 and I've put them through the technology ringer.
00:13 The tests that I've assembled are a startup test to see how quick they are,
00:17 a smartphone integration test, a test to see how good the reverse view cameras are on these cars,
00:22 and also a test to see how well Bluetooth audio quality is for phone calls.
00:26 Now, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.
00:30 That'll tell you every single time we do one of these big old mega tests.
00:33 Let's kick off with the infotainment test. I'll run you through the methodology first.
00:43 What we did was locked all the cars and let them go into a sleep mode,
00:47 then unlocked them, hopped in, and we had to enter the navigation destination being
00:52 Melbourne Airport, and then as soon as it was ready to navigate, that is when the timer stopped.
00:57 You may have noticed that the Haval is missing from this group. That's because it doesn't have
01:02 in-built satellite navigation. It relies on smartphone mirroring to do all of its navigating,
01:06 so we didn't include it as part of this test. So the Tucson was the first cab off the rank,
01:10 which is a little bit surprising given it shares hardware with the Sportage,
01:14 which then came in a few seconds later. So we thought they'd be a whole lot more
01:18 similar than they actually were. Then it was the Jeep Compass. So the Jeep Compass uses a system
01:23 called Uconnect. It's actually not a bad infotainment system and pretty easy to use as
01:27 well and quite fast too, which is pretty good to see. Then it was the CR-V, also surprising given
01:33 how limited that infotainment system is in terms of what it does. I would have thought it'd be a
01:37 little quicker. Then X-Trail and CX-5. The X-Trail uses one of the oldest infotainment systems in
01:42 this batch, whereas the CX-5 leans on a newer widescreen display. Then it was almost a dead
01:47 heap between Outlander and Forester. Again, surprising given Outlander is pretty new to
01:52 this segment. I would have thought that would be a little quicker. Same story with Forester as well.
01:56 It would have been nice to see that have a bit more pace to it. Then RAV4. It is a dated
02:01 infotainment system and you can see here it's not all that fast. Things were then rounded out with
02:06 Tiguan and Escape being the slowest. I was pretty surprised by Tiguan actually, given it is such a
02:12 fresh infotainment system and packs so many features. I would have thought that would be
02:16 a little bit quicker. Escape, look, it does use an older version of the Sync infotainment system and
02:21 it really shows here because it takes a while to start up. Then putting a navigation destination in
02:26 on cold start is painfully slow as well. You could see the Koreans are the winners here in terms of
02:32 the speed of the infotainment systems. The rest of them were kind of about the same. I really wasn't
02:38 all that surprised to see RAV4 right down the bottom, given how dated that system is compared
02:42 to their newer infotainment system. It's interesting to note as well that everything aside from the
02:47 Escape took under a minute to be ready. This test is logical when you think about it because when
02:51 you hop into the car, you need to get going. You don't want to sit around waiting for it to start
02:56 up. You don't really go to the car, unlock it, let it do its thing, go back inside, pack your things,
03:00 and come back to the car. You really just want to get up and go. Most of them were under a minute
03:04 with Escaping, the only one that took longer than a minute to be ready to go. Now it's on to our
03:08 Bluetooth audio quality test. What we did here was we wanted to find out which car had the best
03:14 Bluetooth audio quality because it's an important thing, especially if you're using this car for
03:18 work. If you're traveling and a lot of people will make phone calls on the way home from work or
03:23 while they're traveling to another destination, so you do want to have decent Bluetooth audio
03:27 quality. And the way we did this test was I called cameraman Eagle's phone and left him a voicemail,
03:32 and then we downloaded those voicemails later on to then assess the audio quality. I've also had
03:37 the chance here to test my language skills. So I've used a variety of different languages there,
03:42 so I hope you enjoy that as well. So let's give this a shot.
03:45 [Video]
04:14 So as you can tell there, most of them actually sounded not too bad with variations of quality.
04:19 Probably Forester and Outlander were at the bottom of the pile there in terms of audio quality.
04:23 And while the Havel actually sounded okay, we did notice once the car was driving that the audio
04:28 quality became much worse. And maybe that's due to tire noise or just other noises within the car
04:33 interfering with that Bluetooth quality. So a little bit disappointing to see that working
04:37 well when the car was stationary, but not really working all that well when the car was moving.
04:41 Finally, in our SUV tech comparison, we really wanted to get down to the infotainment systems,
04:47 how good they were to use when they were just operating, how good they were to use on smartphone
04:52 mirroring, and to me, most importantly, how good the reverse view camera quality was. And we used
04:58 our suitcase with some text on there to give you a better idea of exactly how good each of these
05:03 cameras were and whether you should be buying this SUV if you do value this technology and
05:08 reverse view camera stuff. So this is how the test went down. So both the Tucson and the Sportage
05:14 demonstrated excellent smartphone mirroring tech and high quality 360 degree reverse view cameras,
05:19 but it was a little bit disappointing that both required a cable for smartphone mirroring.
05:24 They're not like some of the systems here that are wireless, and I think they really need to get
05:27 with the times to make this stuff wireless because the rest of the infotainment system
05:31 is actually pretty good. The CX-5 also required a cable for smartphone mirroring, but it was the
05:36 most frustrating to use because the infotainment controller wouldn't let you easily switch between
05:41 the side menu and the rest of the on-screen controls, so it did make it a little bit
05:45 fiddly to use on the move. On the upside though, the quality of the 360 degree camera was actually
05:50 pretty good. The CR-V's infotainment screen is tiny, and that meant that the smartphone mirroring
05:56 display was also small. Both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto were both wired, and the reverse
06:02 view camera quality was pretty poor as well, making the CR-V probably the worst one out of
06:07 this bunch unfortunately. Toyota smartphone mirroring integration for Apple CarPlay and
06:11 Android Auto is wired, but it was smooth when it was operating. The reverse view camera quality was
06:17 almost as bad as the CR-V, so even though it did offer a 360 degree camera functionality,
06:22 it was surprising how bad it was when you compared it to the rest of the vehicles in this segment,
06:28 especially given how popular the RAV4 is in and amongst consumers. It really should have a much
06:34 better infotainment system in terms of speed and also quality. So while the Outlander was a little
06:38 slow in our last test, it actually redeemed itself with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
06:44 Both of those worked really well. The 360 degree camera was also good from a reverse view angle,
06:50 but not so great from a top-down view. It kind of had distorted angles on the side there,
06:54 making it a little bit pointless, but the key point there was that the reverse view camera
06:58 was actually quite high quality. The Forester features Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well,
07:03 both wired, but the big screen makes it easy to use. It's quite quick as well when it's moving
07:07 through those menus, and while it doesn't have a traditional 360 degree camera setup,
07:13 the reverse view camera was actually quite good, and then you get additional views above the
07:17 infotainment cluster as well. So it really does kind of cover all bases and presents information
07:22 differently to the rest of the cars in this segment. Now the Havel H6, this really surprised
07:27 us with excellent wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto functionality. The screen is huge, so when
07:33 you flick through everything, it's nice and fast and sharp and very crisp. And then what surprised
07:38 us even further was the camera quality. The 360 camera was extremely high quality, and the camera
07:44 itself and the reversing system had a number of cool features, including a reverse assistant that
07:49 is similar to what we've seen previously on BMW products. It's able to map out your reverse path,
07:54 and then all you do is just let go of the brakes. So pretty impressive setup there from Havel.
07:58 Now while the Jeep Compass didn't do great in our off-road test, it blew us away with the excellent
08:02 360 degree camera quality, wireless Apple CarPlay, wireless Android Auto, and just its functionality
08:08 in general. That Uconnect system is great to use, and I love that they are very tech forward
08:13 in their way of thinking and the way that they've presented that infotainment system.
08:17 The Nissan X-Trail. Look, it is one of the oldest cars in the segment here. It did keep things
08:20 pretty simple with a wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto setup, and it was right up there
08:25 with the CR-V and RAV4 in terms of the poor reverse camera quality. It was really not very
08:30 great at all, and the next generation of X-Trail will hopefully be significantly better when it
08:35 comes to reverse camera quality. Volkswagen impressed with wireless Apple CarPlay and
08:39 Android Auto and a fantastic 360 degree camera. This infotainment system is good to use, but I
08:44 wish it did have some knobs for some of the more critical controls, just making life much easier
08:49 when it comes to things like volume and also adjusting things on the fly. Now, despite being
08:54 dead last in our infotainment speed test, the Ford Escape did offer a quick and easy to use wired
08:59 Apple CarPlay and Android Auto system and a reverse camera with reasonable quality. So,
09:05 you can see here from all of these cars that they really do vary in terms of the quality of that
09:09 reverse view camera and how good the integration is with smartphone mirroring. So, I think it really
09:14 is worth considering this stuff before you buy any car in the medium SUV segment, especially if
09:19 you do value technology, things like making phone calls and getting the most use that you can out of
09:24 your smartphone as well. And to me, reverse view camera quality is just so important. So, it is
09:30 worth making sure that the next car that you pick in this segment has a really good quality reverse
09:34 view camera. So, are you surprised by those results? I wasn't expecting to see such a big
09:44 variance between the reverse cameras and even things like smartphone integration. Some do it
09:48 really well and some do it really poorly. So, yeah, interesting results. Now, let me know what
09:53 you thought about this test. We're keen to build more of these tests and explore more of this type
09:57 of mega testing type setup, but I will be driven by your feedback. So, let me know in the comments
10:02 section which other cars and which other features you want us to test and I'll see what I can do
10:06 about putting it all together. If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you share it with
10:09 your mates. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.
10:14 But until next time, take it easy.