I was planning on doing a micro-review of the Mazda CX-30, but as I was testing the car and gathering my thoughts about it, I found myself confronted with something frustrating, over and over, to the point where I realized that I need to write a different sort of article about this car, because it’s not that common to find a generally good car hamstrung by one trait, especially something that can be so easily solved. The problem is Mazda’s choice to have a center-stack infotainment screen that is not touch, and can only be controlled via a knob and some buttons. I think this choice is precisely the sort of dealbreaker for many buyers that would push them to a similar car, like a Honda HR-V or a Nissan Kicks or maybe a bit bigger to a Toyota RAV4. And I think that’s a shame.
I don’t want Mazda to see this as an attack; it’s more like an intervention you’d have for a friend who’s generally great, but is making some sort of bad life decision that is clearly causing them trouble. And I do think this has to be causing Mazda at least some trouble.
It’s not like nobody is buying the CX-30, but it’s not like it’s doing that great, either. For the first half of 2022, it was ranked eighth among small SUVs/crossovers in sales:
I can’t help but think that the CX-30, which is pretty competitive in most other ways, would have done a lot better if only it had a UX that didn’t make people want to put their fist through the dashboard all the time.
Here’s how the Mazda UX system works: you have a wide screen atop the dash, and you can touch that screen all you want, point to icons or symbols or commands, but all you’re going to get for your poking efforts are fingerprints on the screen. Because this is not a touch screen. Instead, you have a large knob between the front seats, surrounded by a few buttons, and it’s via this that all interactions with that screen must happen.
It’s like some UX designer at Mazda was playing a lot of Tempest and thought, hey, why can’t I control everything in my car the same way as I shoot squiggles with my yellow spiky thing here? Now, a good number of years ago, before touchscreens became commonplace, this sort of interface wasn’t that uncommon. Today, though, it is, and I think it’s pretty clear why.
It’s awkward. It’s awkward in the Mazda-designed UX that was specifically designed to work with this setup, and it’s even more awkward when using something like Android Auto or Apple CarPlay – interfaces whose designs are based on phone interfaces that were really only meant to be manipulated via a touchscreen.
When using CarPlay, the UX is forced to add a glowing frame around whatever icon or control currently has focus, and in place of a tap, you can press down on the knob to act as a button. In some contexts, the knob can be tilted joystick-style to move the cursor, but mostly you’re spinning the knob to move focus from icon to icon.
It, charitably, sucks. And this isn’t shocking; the CarPlay interface was never meant to be controlled via a knob, at any point in its development. This is very much a touch-based interface.
Ruining the way a driver interacts with CarPlay (and Android Auto) is a big deal, because there’s a huge number of drivers out there who are only interested in interacting with their car’s infotainment via such systems. For many people, the manufacturer’s UX just doesn’t matter, because they’d rather listen to music or navigate via the UX they already know, the one on their phones.
As a bit of anecdotal evidence, a good friend of mine is a Honda Fit owner, and I recently had to help her perform some arcane system reset on her car so her CarPlay would work again. And let me tell you, it not working on her car was a big deal. Her enjoyment of her car – which she is very fond of – is heavily dependent on CarPlay working. When it started to work again her face lit up with unashamed relief and joy. I’m certain she is not alone.
When I was using CarPlay on the CX-30, I found myself instinctively poking fecklessly at the screen over and over again, and then, dejected, having to spin that knob around until I was able to do whatever the hell it was I was trying to do, a process that invariably took far longer than the quick poke I had attempted.
The system is so bafflingly awkward I had to reach out to Mazda to get a sense of what the logic was behind this choice. Here’s what they told me:
“Mazda’s philosophy is to minimize driving distractions. We’ve done studies that have shown navigating the infotainment by feel through the commander knob helps minimize driving distractions and keeping the driver’s eyes focused on the road.”
Now, conceptually, sure, this all makes sense. Don’t be distracted! Screens are not great for most car functions, really, and I very much prefer physical controls. But that plural is crucial: controls. One physical control that acts as a mechanism to navigate options on a screen is not the same as, say, having tactile knobs for volume or HVAC controls or whatever. This doesn’t solve the problem of keeping your eyes on the road, because despite Mazda suggesting “navigating by feel,” I don’t see how you could do that for almost anything I tried to do. You still have to look at the damn screen to know what you’re selecting.
This is especially true with CarPlay; you can’t navigate just by feel when there’s nothing to feel? I’m not saying touchscreens are perfect by any means, but, glancing at a screen and poking at the thing you want I found to be far, far quicker and requires less hand-eye coordination that spinning a knob until the icon you want has a blue frame on it.
Other people may feel differently, so I have a dissenting opinion for you here: our own Thomas Hundal said he actually likes using this setup, so I let him make a case in favor of the knob:
To people who’ve never used Mazda’s latest infotainment system before, it may seem like an unnecessarily obtuse way of using phone mirroring features like Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. After all, Apple CarPlay was designed with touchscreen use in mind, why funnel everything through a scroll wheel? Well, there is a fairly good reason, and it has to do with how people actually use Apple CarPlay.
If you use the rotary knob to punch an address into a navigation app, you’ll have to do it Asteroids-style and scroll letter-by-letter. However, as Apple CarPlay is powered by your phone, it’s just faster to tell Siri where you want to go than it is to punch in characters on a digital QWERTY keyboard, especially given the delay between punching in characters and Waze or Google Maps bringing up results. After all, Siri is leagues better than any native automotive voice command system, so why not use the best tools available?
Once on the move, controlling CarPlay via knob really comes into its own. Recently-used apps are all docked on the left, so scrolling through grids is a fallacy. If you ever feel compelled to do something like hop into your calendar on a whim while driving across town, please just take a bus. Plus, a knob is the best way to use Waze. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but muscle memory is quickly built to flag hazards without even taking your eyes off the road.
What’s more, Mazda has perfected how to switch audio tracks on the go with its jog-capable volume knob. Tilt the knob right to skip forward and left to skip back, it’s so intuitive that every automaker should use it.
Being able to use common functions without taking your eyes off the road is a safety feature and one that’s increasingly important as cars become more software-defined. A magazine test out of Sweden has some good data on how screens are more distracting than knobs and buttons, and not being distracted can be the difference between a hard braking event and a very expensive phone call to your insurance company’s claims hotline. While most manufacturers have focused on turning cars into smartphones, Mazda’s focused on making smartphone tech safe to use in cars, and almost every other automaker could learn something from this tiny Hiroshima-based company.
Okay, Thomas, okay, take it easy. First, we’re seeing some of the same it’s-just-a-knob fallacy here, because that Swedish study was talking about dedicated function knobs and buttons, not what Mazda’s system really is, which has a knob as an interface for a screen. I mean, look at what the study tested:
The team at Vi Bilägare chose a litany of fairly simple tests for drivers to perform. The first was an obvious winter morning routine of turning on the heated seat, bumping up HVAC temperature by two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and activating the rear defroster. The second was as common as can be, to power on the radio and set the channel to Sweden’s P1 talk channel.
Those are functions that have dedicated physical controls; I’m complaining about using a knob to navigate UXs that require some degree of screen attention.
Maybe, as Thomas says, with a learning curve, you can get pretty good at navigating such a system. I’m sure you can.
[Editor’s Note: My brother Phillip (also known as Shep) owns a new Mazda CX-5 with the same interface. He likes it. In fact, here’s his full take:
Ah, the topic of control dial versus touchscreen, one so divisive it has created a rift in my relationship with my wife, who jokingly quips of how primitive my car is without touch capacity. I, however, am a purist for analog, and get arm cramps just thinking of the effort it takes to control such highfalutin tech! Slight lean, arm lift, stretch toward the pixels, and precisely tap a tiny target, leaving smudgy impression behind. I’m exaggerating, of course, but I genuinely don’t wish my car had a touchscreen because, after a few week’s learning curve, I can navigate Mazda Connect (and more importantly, Android Auto) just as easily.
I think most of you will agree: touching a knob feels so good (a statement that, I recognize, might raise some eyebrows for the UK readers). To be clear, Mazda’s UI can be cumbersome, touchscreen or not. There seem to be a million ways to tune the radio, none less confusing and frustrating to navigate through than a Tomb Raider puzzle.
Fortunately, I use Android Auto (Apple CarPlay for you i-users), which is where the updated, dial-only infotainment in my 2021 model shines. The 10.25-inch panel does split-screen better than macOS, allowing me to effortless switch between Maps and Music with a swift push and click–a gesture so intuitive that it doesn’t require me adjusting my gaze from the road. Navigation is done through voice (Google Assistant, in my case) and song selection is only a few taps away.
Only one thing makes me yearn for a touchscreen: pinch to zoom. Rare, yes, but there are occasions when I want to navigate across Google Maps to see what’s around me or if there is an alternate route. With the dial, I can zoom in and out, but only from a fixed point with my CX-5 in the center. Pushing the knob left or right doesn’t shift the map around. On a touchscreen, you can navigate freely, moving your view in any which direction and zooming more precisely. For that reason alone, I wish both touchscreen and dial inputs were offered on the CX-5, which, if Mazda is being honest with itself, it should have done to begin with.
-DT].
But you can also get really good at efficiently poking things on a touch screen, and that’s the UX you’re already using all day as it is. And, worse for Mazda, when people are cross-shopping cars, they don’t have the luxury of the learning curve, so for potential buyers for whom CarPlay or Android Auto is important, it only takes one frustrating test drive to push them into the seat of a Honda HR-V.
Again, I say these things as a friend, Mazda. This isn’t a hill worth dying on. The CX-30 is engaging to drive, looks good, has decent cargo room, and is otherwise a fine small crossover choice. I very well might pick it over a Nissan Kicks or a Hyundai Kona or a VW Taos. But not if I get pissed off every time I stab the Maps icon with my finger and jack shit happens, or a call comes in and poking the big green answer button doesn’t do anything, and then I have to find that knob and watch that screen and then they’ve hung up and now she’s pissed at me and that’s a whole other can of worms, so thanks for that, Mazda.
I’m not alone in my disparagement of the knob. Over at The Old Site, they came to a similar conclusion, and even the stalwart and sober Consumer Reports corroborates my bitching. From Y Combinator, which quotes Consumer Reports’ review (which is behind a paywall):
The infotainment screen mounted in the center of the dash isn’t a touch screen; users must adjust audio and infotainment features using steering wheel controls or the rotary controller and buttons mounted between the front seats. Unfortunately, some steering wheel controls are hard to see and difficult to use because they have silver text on a silver background. The rotary knob and buttons in the center console are also challenging to use since many of the buttons are difficult to see at a glance, and the lack of an easy-to-decipher menu structure forces drivers to spend too long looking at the controls instead of the road.
Besides, if Mazda really loves their knob, there’s zero reason they can’t keep it and have a touch screen! Lots of other cars do just that. People used to it can get whatever benefits they think it offers, and everyone else who isn’t Thomas and some Mazda UX designers can do it the normal people way, by poking things with their fingers.
Are these non-touch screens that much cheaper? Pretty much everything else on the market has a touch screen, so unless Mazda promised to empty a bunch of old inventory out of an LCD warehouse, I can’t think of any reason why having some touch functionality would hurt them.
In fact, I’m just going to come out and turn this into my hot take: if you’re going to have a big screen on your dash for controls, just go ahead and make it a touchscreen. It’s become such an ubiquitous way to interact with screens today that it’s pointless (no pun intended, but damn) to fight it. If people’s trained instinct is to touch an image or word of what they want to happen, what’s to be gained by not allowing that?
If you have a better idea with your knobs or trackballs or squeeze-bulbs then great, implement it, see how it does, but only in parallel with the touchscreen setup that everyone expects. Because, let’s just face it, touching things just works.
The point is Mazda could likely eliminate a potential source of buyer rejection very easily, if it’s willing to swallow some pride and have touch screens in their cars.
I recently retrofitted Carplay into my E92 which results in a similar jog-wheel style interaction and no touch screen.
My E46 also has a Carplay retrofit, but it’s down lower in the dash and is a full touchscreen.
Benefits of the E92 is that the screen is far higher in the dash and in my line of sight. When navigating, this is extremely useful. It’s also useful for my ADHD-driven “next” spamming through Spotify. The jog wheel falls right to hand and I can twiddle it as needed without moving my hand, adjusting my torso, or taking my eyes off the road for anything more than a quick confirmation that I’m selecting the proper thing… if I need to use the jog wheel at all. A majority of functions are doable through the steering wheel (volume, next, previous, initiate siri), so all I’m doing with the jog wheel is maybe switching from maps to spotify or opening my garage door while cruising down the street to my house.
At first I hated it, now I hate it a lot less.
In my E46 the screen is way down within arms reach but way out of my line of sight. I refuse to turn on audible navigation alerts (eff you for interrupting my music to tell me where to go) and I find myself missing turns because I can’t see the screen. Reaching forward to touch the screen is annoying, I always miss the first try because the car is moving around, and it’s generally frustrating. At least with the knob I get a visual confirmation I’m about to hit “select” on the wrong thing. Poke the wrong virtual button with your sausage finger and you’re hosed.
Sidebar, my mother had a Mazda3 with this infotainment (no carplay though) and she never even realized that it had a touchscreen (which was disabled in motion), and even after I told her she more or less refused to use it because she had grown so adept with the knob, and reaching up to touch a touchscreen was annoying.
Yeah, why the hell do the nav alerts have to turn your music off while they’re talking? Why can’t they just talk over it, like, you know, a person? It’s obnoxious as hell. I turn that shit off immediately whenever it happens.
I can’t fucking stand when the UConnect in my Ram has issues with CarPlay. I never thought I’d be so dependent on it, and I’m not sure that’s even the right word, but like I’m at the point where I don’t want to deal with any automaker’s bullshit UI for the radio and nav, I just want CarPlay and I want it to work right and these Panasonic or Mitsubishi or whatever the vendor of the month for FCA radios is, they’re just fucking garbage, so CarPlay frequently crashes for me and it’s incredibly frustrating and I know this is a run-on sentence but this shit just makes me mad.
That being said, I can control CarPlay with a knob or by the screen and I strictly use the screen because using a knob but having to look at what’s happening on the screen is more dangerous than just using the fucking screen. I remember Mazda made a big deal about how their screens aren’t touch screens, but as you’ve already said, that’s fucking stupid. I want physical controls for things that it doesn’t make more sense to use the screen for. This reminds me of a phone I had in high school that appeared to be a touch screen but wasn’t. Kids these days will never know the awkward period between smart phones and regular cell phones, but I’m sure they could get a taste of it in a Mazda.
Hard disagree here Torch. I rented a Mazda 6 while out in AZ and within an hour I was able to handle using the knob to select things with Carplay instead of trying to tap the screen. It does become intuitive if you’re willing to actually learn it.
Garbage take.
We have a CX30. Cross shopped everything else in its class and it was hands down the best handling most satisfying car from a driver’s perspective. Unfortunately it seems a bit slept on but I guess that just goes to show what the masses want out of a car. Outside of the driving aspect, the interior and general layout is wonderful and certainly feels upscale compared to the competition.
The system may not seem intuitive to the uninitiated but after having hands on with it for a year, I absolutely prefer this method. I can keep one hand rotating the knob to get what I want and it lets me keep my eyes on the road. There are only a few buttons you need to manipulate the entire AI and while it may take more time than a touchscreen for SOME actions, I am able to do a much better job of keeping my attention on the road.
Go ahead though and keep talking about your chinese golf cart.
As far as Mazda goes, I absolutely detest this.. absolutely.
Ive… well I WAS been hunkering for a decent Mazda3hatch for Y E A R S especially because the exterior was POINT ON:
I loved the grill, front end, body design, sculpting, colors.. even the available TURBO. HECK, people hated the car cause it looked like it was smiling — or it had the JOKER face from the 1989 Batman film. Either way.. Ida bought it cause the design was superb. (I was doing numbers in my head. If there was 100,000 Mazda3s on the road, 1 in 10 was a hatch. The numbers get more depressing AGAINST adding blue or a red color, the turbo). The numbers truely brought me into fits of rage, severe aggravation and depression….
THEN, I got into the interior:
1. It was JET FUCKING BLACK!
2. It had some “LCD screen” placed at about a 30-45deg angle facing me. They tried to style it to fit the dashboard.. but either there wasnt enough useless shit to be put up there.. to make people want it. They tried it with the first design back in 08 or so and again in 12-13ish. I havent tried the recent one.. cause they just aggravate me.
3. Ive also noticed a jillion people use their GPS units.. constantly, either on their devices or their vehicle units. (Id guess they get lost on their way home.) — Im just not having it, using it, dont want it.
4. It was almost damn near impossible to find a RED Hatch with the Tan interior. The Tan interior didnt stretch to the whole interior. Either they did the seats and door cards and not the dash… but they left the inclination that it was half assed. Headliner was black and or dash top was black… it didnt thrill me.
Dash mounted LCD screens.. dont use or have the ability to offer enough useful info to make it worth it to buy the damn thing. Example, my wife’s 13 Edge:
Its got a 4-5″ LCD Screen and its operable with the buttons positioned next to it. Sure, there is no thought into the design of type of buttons (size, shape, placement, function). I wish.. maybe that could be a better Design Theory for this Mazda Design. But the Ford one my wife has.. is as “decent” as it comes. — Not one Id want to use daily. — Having to use a seperate dial located behind the shifter.. to operate this thing, is like trying to tie my shoes as Im driving. I can do the tying in my head.. but not while driving.
P.S
I also ROYALLY detest the shape or size of the unit.. purely because.. 1 its standing, 2 its in my line of sight, 3 its a odd as all hell shape..
I was also really stupid that day I tested the Mazda3hatch… cause I also tested a Mitsu Sportback in Blue. I wanted to go home, vomit uncontrollably and use myself as a pin cushion while making Potatoes and pouring bleach over my wounds.
‘Orrible
If the screen is “in your line of sight,” that is actually a good thing, unless you are too short to be driving the car. Cars that don’t put instrumentation in your line of sight are a hazard. My HUD is especially nice.
Why would you want a solid tan interior? The interior color in the Mazda is very tastefully limited.
The supply of cars limits your options. There were no Mazda3 Hatchbacks in all of the Phoenix area last time I checked.
1. I thought If I wanted to see that much black.. Id have to die first.
2. Not a single hatch… in all of Phoenix… that really does blow.
Also,
I view a LCD screen being in my line of sight as a bad thing because.. in my 20yr old Honda, I have full visibility from any angle. I also have 6″ above my head, as I sit nearly vertical. If I had something in my line of sight.. then it would prohibit me driving correctly.
In my line of sight.. would be intruding on what I should be doing… driving. Not interacting with a idiot device superglued to my dash.
I have a Miata with that same system and it is absolutely infuriating. It’s a touchscreen when the car is stopped, but then once you start moving you have to use the stupid knob and buttons between the seats. Instead of glancing at the screen I’m looking down between the seats to see which button to press. Absolutely maddening. I just don’t understand why they can’t allow to touchscreen to always be functional, but also have the knob and buttons for people that would rather use that. It seems like it’s pretty close to a 50/50 split in preference.
What is most frustrating in our 2016 CX-5 is that it is a functional touchscreen, at least when you’re not moving. Once you start driving it locks out the touch aspect and you’re forced to use a knob.
I don’t disagree with a lot of commenters here that there are certain functions that are much better with the knob setup once you’re used to it, but not all. The decision to lock out the screen is simply maddening. The functionality is already there, just let me tap the screen to change my navigation app dammit! With a touch screen on Carplay that’s a simple swipe and tap, but with the knob its several twists of the knob, click, twist again, check whether the right box is highlighted, twist again, click. Madness.
Thank you Torch! We had one of these as a rental while our vehicle was in the shop and I absolutely hated the infotainment system. Pure garbage. This idea that touch is more distracting than whatever this is is madness. It’s MORE distracting to have to scroll through a bunch of stuff while looking at a screen than it is to briefly look at the screen and touch the thing you want.
I just bought a CX-30 about 3 months ago. Torch, my friend that I’ve never spoken to before ever, I’m glad you brought up the turn signals, because they are awesome! Perfectly simple, and the fade out is just fun to watch.
However, I’m going to take a bit of issue with this touch screen take. I’ve found two times the Mazda UI really misses the boat: changing radio stations (when you want to dial up a specific station that isn’t in your favorites), and, admittedly, using CarPlay *before you’re on the move.* When you’re setting up the CarPlay screen, touch screen would probably be faster. However, while I’m on the move, the steering wheel controls do the yeoman’s work. Changing tracks, picking up phone calls, changing volume, it’s all at my thumb tips. If I wanted to dial up a specific artist on Spotify, it would be bad, but it’s also bad on a touch screen if you’re on the move.
Otherwise, it may not be as fast as touch, but the control dial is good. I truly do find an advantage in the screen being more in my line of sight. Between the HUD and the high center screen, I hardly look down, a point I don’t know that I would have noticed as quickly as I have if I didn’t drive my wife’s Kia Soul as often as I do. Looking down for that center (touch) screen is noticeably different, and it takes time to adjust to it, and to find out what I need on the screen.
I imagine that with use, and spending more than a minute to try to figure it out, it gets easier. I had one of these as a rental for a week this past summer. The interface was so frustrating that I gave up and let my wife figure it out from the passenger seat. Even trying to change the radio station was a challenge even when I knew the channel. Other than that I liked the car quite a bit
I test drove an RDX that had the Acura touchpad thingy. It was great. So I guess I like a cousin of the knob.
Add me in with the others, the knob and buttons are far superior to a touch screen that requires you take your eyes off the road to aim your finger.
Coming from BMW and now Alfa, I view the rotary knobs as a huge improvement in the interface, all muscle memory and far less drawing your eyes away from the road, especially with Siri being available for CarPlay.
Does Mazda no longer allow you to use the touchscreen when stopped? On my 2018 you can use the screen if the car is stopped it locks out when moving. Once I got used to the wheel I never use the touch screen since I don’t want fingerprints. The one exception is typing in addresses to the factory nav, but honestly how often does someone do that will Apple/Android mirroring?
Personally I find it way easier to use the wheel then poke the screen when the cars moving, bouncing. But I seem to be particularly bad at that task. The worst part about it is that people expect to be able to use the touchscreen and not being able to annoys them.
Torch I’m not sure what you’re on about. I echo the sentiments of most of the comments I’m seeing; Touch screens are an absolutely inferior experience on a vehicle. The non-touch infotainment experience (as well as the dedicated climate control buttons and knobs) is far superior. The haptic feedback as well as intuitively understand where you’re controls lie as opposed to scanning searching and pecking is far better. Not to mention the safety and ease of being able to navigate the road and the screens at the same time. You can comfortably sit from your driving position and navigate a clearly laid out and well thought out navigation on both car play and Android auto. Alternatively I could have a touch screen which would leave me craned forward, eyes darting from road to screen, frantically trying to find my seat warmer off button buried 3 screens deep. Oh and the finger prints only show up on a touch screen….
I fed SOOOO many quarters into Tempest consoles in the 80’s. What a game, I don’t think any other game of that era sucked you in so far.
so the comment section isn’t going the way you planned…
Or is it? Telling someone they’re wrong is the second most popular activity on the internet.* It’s a great way to drive traffic to the site. 😉
*: You know what the first one is, and it also frequently involves knobs.
My wife has a MINI Countryman PHEV which has both touchscreen and iDrive knob (Because it’s a BMW). I never use the screen, as the knob is far superior. No need to take the eyes off the road, no need to lean forward and no need to focus to hit just the right icon in the moving car.
I made an account just to say this, you’re wrong and the knob is far superior. There’s a small learning curve, sure but it is far far less distracting than trying to steady your hand to touch the icons on the screen. In fact I’d say other manufacturers should follow Mazda’s lead here . I love the fact that Mazda still has tactile interfaces in their cars which goes against the industry which is trying to move everything to screens or touch sensitive buttons.
WTF, Torch? Did someone kidnap your Beetle and told you to write this touchscreen hagiography? Touchscreens are the cancer of modern cars – they’re unsafe, laggy, poorly designed and awkwardly placed. The tech behind them is usually trash – they’re bad, and they should feel bad.
If anything, as we all want nice color hi definition visuals, the screen+knob and some buttons is the best solution, as it doesn’t require your constant attention and allows to actually change some settings WITHOUT taking your eyes from the road.
The only moment when touchscreen may be useful is inputting some address in nav system; but you can just say it when using Google Maps or Apple version of maps, so it doesn’t matter.
I had W205 c-class, and it used screen with a fucking touchpad – that was horrendous, and one of the reasons I got rid of the otherwise fine car. The touchpad was imprecise, and had a tendency to freeze or lock – just switching it to something physical (like a knob) with clearly feelable (is that a word?) movements would solve the problem.
I thought that Autopian is a safespace for physical buttons!
Sorry, but damn, son, I am dissapoint.
I have never used a CX-5, but it seems that his issue is that this combines the worst of both worlds. I dunno, give me knobs and no screens at all any day of the week.
Way to completely miss the point. This is solely about stuff that is only ever on the screen, i.e. CarPlay.
Yes of course all the physical buttons cars had before screens should still be physical; climate settings, radio, etc.
Sorry Torch, you’re dead wrong. We have a 2016 CX-5 and we love the knob based infotainment navigation. Does it have a steeper learning curve than a touchscreen? Absolutely. But once you learn it (which doesn’t take long) you’ll know it is far superior. You should never be reaching for a virtual button on a flat piece of glass that moves especially without a place to steady your hand.
I just rented a Jetta this weekend and used Android Auto on it with a touchscreen and was so frustrated. Trying to poke a little symbol without any place to steady my hand while driving was an exercise in futility. I ended up trying to poke icons 5-6 times before I could hit it. Do you know how much time it took to take my eyes off the road to do that?!? On my CX-5, I could count the icons, twist the knob that many times and select it WAY faster and without even taking my eyes off the road. Mazda knows what they are doing here and I support it wholeheartedly. My partner who isn’t a techie love it too. If he could learn it and enjoy it, almost anyone can.
I’m not sure what to say here Jason.
You are not only wrong, you’re advocating less choice in the market. I personally do NOT want to touch a screen, and want buttons that I can use from memory without taking my eyes off of the road. I’ll buy a lower spec model to NOT have a touchscreen. I hate when I get a rental and can only do certain things on the screen.
Also, touchscreens usually require leaning forward and to the right in order to use them. Some discrete physical controls on the steering wheel and the center console do not.
Maybe your friend should think about safety before Carplay, and I say that as someone who has 9500+ songs avail in the car. Hit random/shuffle at the start of the drive and let it be. There is zero reason to do anything else while driving. If you dislike a song so much you keep skipping it, remove it from your playlist when you are not driving.
I cross shopped a Mazda 2 GT and a Kia Rio GT Line last year. Both very competent, light hatchbacks with similar features, performance and fuel economy. I went in fully expecting to buy a Mazda but picked the Kia and one of the (several) deciding factors was definitely the Mazda’s stupid infotainment knob.
As Jason pointed out – why not have both? In my old Holden Cruze I had the perfect balance – a sea of hard, tactile buttons for frequently used functions AND a touchscreen for punching in destination addresses. Sure, the GM MyLink system was shithouse (the whole fucking car was, really) but the button and touchscreen combination was the ultimate. Buttons for muscle memory while driving, touchscreen for functions that should only be used when parked.
I’m another Mazda owner who loves that it isn’t a touchscreen. Touchscreens should not exist in cars, at all, deadstop. Sorry Torch.
I have the same type of control knob in my ’18 Audi A5. Its great especially since it would be difficult to lean forward enough to touch the screen anyway. Im convinced its quicker to glance at the screen then to watch it the whole time as your finger moves towards a touch screen. Especially on the lovely michigan roads.
Iin my Miata it’s only touch sensitive when you aren’t moving, but I never touch the screen because I can use the knob without having to look now that I am used to it. I find it pretty intuitive and faster than touching the screen anyway.
As a 2021 Mazda3 driver, the infotainment system is my second favorite aspect, second only overall styling.
The knob has a learning curve, but it is not steep. And the location means I can control everything but environment without reaching anywhere. Lack of touch screen allows the screen to be further forward, better placed for viewing and safety. I never have to compromise my safety by staring at a screen to make sure I pushed the right “button.” Plus . . . no fingerprints!!!
Mazda has always been a bit niche, and, but that is fine. Drive your HR-V, or whatever else you like, and save the Mazda for people with good taste. I pity the fool who thinks all the world needs to have an iPad interface.
Yep, same. I have the sedan model and the infotainment is great.
In my CX-50, you can set the touch screen to be functional at all times, even while driving. I set it so after a day of ownership, but nonetheless I use the control knob 99.9% of the time. It’s pretty dang intuitive in conjunction with CarPlay.
The CX-50 learned from the mistake of the earlier models like the CX-30 by adding touch to the system. Probably because of the feedback from customers and dealers. I like the knob too, but certain things like pinch and pan in maps as well as figuring out which icon is highlighted when using Carplay or Android Auto make having both options really the best of both worlds.