Hyundai's luxury brand Genesis has been gaining increasing attention over the course of its relatively short lifetime, and I recently had a chance to try out a 2023 Electrified GV70 SUV to see how the infotainment experience stacks up for an iPhone owner.
My test vehicle was a high-end Prestige trim with a beautiful 14.5-inch widescreen center screen, complemented by a 12.3-inch all-digital driver display featuring autostereoscopic 3D technology, plus an additional head-up display for viewing key information without having to take your eyes off the road.
The GV70's center display is mounted high on the dashboard and set back a decent amount, which puts it in a good spot for glancing at without having to look too far away from what's in front of you, but the positioning and widescreen dimensions make operating it via the touchscreen a bit of a reach. To address that, Genesis also includes a rotary controller and a number of buttons within easy reach of the driver on the center console.
The rotary controller includes a dial for navigating between user interface elements, and you can press the dial to register your selection, but the dial can also be rocked to move more quickly move between pages and sections in the system. The surface of the controller is also touch-sensitive, allowing you to draw out letters when trying to search for destinations or performing other tasks where text entry is needed. Voice commands are typically a much superior method for this, however.
In addition to the rotary controller, there are several buttons located directly above it on the console to quickly access specific functions in the infotainment system, including dedicated Home, Menu, and Back buttons. Scroll-style buttons also allow for easy volume and tuning adjustments.
Steering wheel controls are another method for controlling some infotainment functions, and there's even another strip of buttons on the center stack below the climate controls with quick access to the map, navigation, radio, and media functions. This strip and the steering wheel each have a user-configurable "star" button that can be set to jump you straight into CarPlay.
And yes, climate controls have their own dedicated section separate from the main infotainment screen and they include a combination of physical and digital controls that works quite well. The driver and passenger each have a knob for adjusting the temperature for their respective sides of the cabin, and there additional commonly used controls to the outside of these dials.
These climate controls are not individual buttons, but the small panels they're on do move when pressed, providing some tactile feedback. Other settings like heated and cooled seats, heated steering wheel, and manual fan speed adjustments are made on a digital screen, so they're harder to manage by feel, although they do provide some haptic and audio feedback when pressed.
For the most part, the native infotainment system has a sleek, modern look, with high-resolution graphics and a logical layout of screens and panels that's easy to navigate using the rotary controller or by touch.
A full array of functions are available, from SiriusXM to onboard navigation to EV data. There are even a variety of soothing nature sounds that can be piped throughout the cabin, and there's a weather app complete with a radar view.
The onboard navigation is functional and helpful with both overview and next-turn views available simultaneously while a route is in progress, but the look could stand some modernization to better match the rest of the infotainment system.
In the driver's display, Genesis includes the neat Blind-Spot View Monitor system that Hyundai has offered for a number of years, which uses cameras on the side-view mirror to display a live video feed of your blind spot on a given side when you engage your turn signal. It's a handy feature that I wish was common in more brands.
The other clever driver's display feature that comes as part of the Prestige package on the GV70 is the 3D aspect. It's something you really have to experience in person to fully grasp, but it takes advantage of parallax with offset images to turn gauges and other digital aspects of the instrument cluster into three-dimensional representations that give a sense of depth.
A camera pointed at the driver tracks their position and gaze, adjusting the 3D effect accordingly. The whole thing is a bit gimmicky, but it's kind of neat and stands out as something different to help set the high-end Genesis trims apart.
The GV70 includes a pair of USB-A ports (one for charge and data and one for charging only) in a small cubby on the center console that also includes a wireless Qi charger. As with many car chargers, it can be difficult to get a reliable wireless charging connection, likely due to the slab-style charger design and the iPhone's camera bump and case lip interfering with positioning on the charger... Click here to read rest of article
Article Link: Review: 2023 Genesis Electrified GV70 Offers Lots of Tech, but You'll Need a Cable for CarPlay
