I was browsing the HJ website, and was diverted into a road test of the new Peugeot 308SW. Sounds a cracking car, but a comment in the review caught my eye, which asserted that the touch pad was "rather better from a road safety point of view, than looking down and twiddling knobs". I disagree. My aging Saab is fitted with a touch screen radio & satnav, and I have been irritated for years that the touch screen can only be properly operated by looking at the screen to locate the small area required to change waveband etc. Much easier to feel for the control button without taking your eyes off the road. Luckily most of the common controls such as volume, station change, and source selection are on the steering wheel.
I can understand why satnavs are touch screen to a certain extent, but I have serious concerns about the safety aspects of touch screens, and IMHO cannot be considered to be a safety improvement on physical controls. Am I alone?
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+1
Touch screen requires you look at them to operate!
In a dumb mobile phone (with traditional buttons), I can dial a number (usually from my recent list) without looking at the phone at all (even while driving). It is also a doddle to put them to speakerphone by touching physical keys.
This impossible in touch screen phones (unless you take help of separate devices like hands free bluetooth etc.).
Physical buttons are also much faster! Nowadays my Android phone's contact screen takes several seconds to appear (by the time a lorry can overtake another).
Manufacturers prefer touchscreens because it is cheaper to make/replace them.
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Drove a Pug 208 (loan car) last week while the 'lingo was having a towbar fitted. Touch screen for radio was a real distraction particularly when I needed to retune 5Live to the 693 frequency which is the strongest locally. Unlike 909 it was not in memory.
Even for stored stations you need to go to a menu page and select from there.
In my own car I can find buttons by feel and have it set so that using the band button to toggle through 3 x FM and 1 AM memories sequentially I can go straight from one to next the four stations I listen to most R4, R2, Classic FM and 5live.
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Buttons and switches every time thank-you. But, obviously, we know why touch screen systems are the unfortunate future - they're cheap.
As for a French touch screen system, well I hope my lifespan will be such that I'm never forced to own one.
My pal in the UK has a new Citroen C4 Picasso with two computer screens controlling everything. He has already had to have two training sessions at the dealer to cope with it. Now his stop-start system sometimes does the first but won't do the second until he opens and shuts the front passenger door. I just don't want to look into the future any more...
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Nah, the future will be some fiendish mix of gestures and voice control. Much easier to say "Radio 3" and it happens.
That technology is already in my 2008 car, never mind in another few years. Of course, in mine, you say "Radio 3" and it tells you it doesn't know where to find a pizza, but the idea is there.
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Having driven both the Peugeot 208 and the new 308 there is a big difference in the way the screens operate.
In the 208 it does up to four things: Radio, fuel computer, vehicle settings and optionally sat nav. The vehicle settings should be altered on the move anyway and the radio has loads of preset buttons again you can set up while stationary. The operation is fairly easy once you know how but, to be honest, is not that intuitive.
In the 308 (and Citroen C4 Picasso) the big difference is that there are shortcut buttons down the side of the screen to get straight to the heater controls for example. Much less distracting and a better interface than the 208.
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If, as in my Golf, all the major controls are available on the steering wheel, as well as the though screen I really don't see he problem. You shouldn't need to be using the minor controls, either as knobs and buttons or as a touch screen whilst on the move.
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I personally like good old rotary controls, once you drive the car for a while you can tell what the setting is without looking at it, even the button operated climate control on my Hyundai requires you to look once in a while such is the number of buttons. I think the best though were the sliders like in my old Mazda 323, simple but very easy to use without looking.
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Luddite alert ! I hate touch screens.....Buttons and knobs anytime. My next, post caravan, knocking about car will have points, carb (one ), an air filter and oil filter that are easy to get at, plenty of room under the bonnet to work and a fairly easy clutch to change....although I don't do clutches in. TC auto would be better !
The Renault 4/6 fills all my needs apart from auto but they will easily take an engine and autobox from a Mk1 Ren 5....if I can find one now!
I drive new Toyota Yarises most days....not touch screen but can I find Classic FM ! The tuner jumps from 97 to 104 and completely ignores 101.1. I couldn't get any response from the radio today...silence. I fiddled and farted about with it but nothing. Drove the 8 miles to have it serviced. Collected it a couple of hours later.....still nothing. I stopped at the garage entrance to pull out and do a right onto the main road. I saw a likely gap, pulled out quickly, got halfway and the radio kicked in at full volume on some pop channel......nearly gave me an apoplexy !
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>> I drive new Toyota Yarises most days....not touch screen but can I find Classic FM
>> ! The tuner jumps from 97 to 104 and completely ignores 101.1.
PSA (Citroen and Pug) radios do that too. When they scan it's a two stage process starting in Local mode i.e. with the signal either attenuated or under amplified. Only after scanning the entire band does it switch to DX (distant) mode for a second scan.
In most places Local mode only picks up nearby transmitters - typically just the local BBC and ILR stations though it may catch BBC National stations if, as in Sheffield for example, there are local infill transmitters.
Classic FM is mainly reliant on the high power 'main' transmitters such as Sutton Coldfield and Holme Moss. The PSA radio only detects these on the second, DX, scan. Once the station is stored RDS usually hops seamlessly between masts but if signal does drop out then RDS will invoke a full LOCAL/DX search.
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What a palaver. Another vote for manual control here. They can stick their touch screens.
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>>The Renault 4/6 fills all my needs apart from auto but they will easily take an engine and autobox from a Mk1 Ren 5....if I can find one now!
Funnily enough I saw a Ren 4 at the weekend - D reg in red, looked pretty tidy, and in regular use.
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I wonder how long before the entire dashboard will be replaced by a touch screen tablet built in to the steering!
The pedals can become touch screen too. There will be a single screen in footwell and you need to press at appropriate locations for brake/acceleration action.
Or brake/accelerator/clutch can disappear altogether as you can control cars in games entirely using handheld controls.
Not looking for future :-(
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>> I wonder how long before the entire dashboard will be replaced by a touch screen
>> tablet built in to the steering!
>>
I think Tesla have done that sort of. One screen for info in the dashboard, and one single touch screen in the centre console for all controls of heater, radio etc.
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I can't work a touchscreen properly to save my life. Children can do it. I can't.
The very thought of one of these ghastly things on the facia of a car makes my heart sink. Recipe for disaster in my case.
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>> My next, post caravan, knocking about car will have points
Now that's one thing I do not miss. I also like the old fashioned approach but one of the few updates I have made to the Commer was the installation of electronic ignition replacing points. They never bothered me on any car I owned that had them but in the Commer they caused me pain on a regular basis.
on the original topic, my new Golf has large touch screen in the middle but I would not expect to ever need to touch it on the move while driving as all the functions it performs which I need to use while driving can be accessed from the steering wheel, except , irritatingly, the ability to switch between radio and "media".
The touch screen does give the front seat passenger an excellent interface to music / phone / satnav etc.
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>> The touch screen does give the front seat passenger an excellent interface to music /
>> phone / satnav etc.
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No passenger in my car is allowed to touch ANYTHING.
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Sort of with you there Robin, I even get resentful if the passenger messes with the dual zone climate control for their side of the car. This can lead to a lack of symmetry in the display which is unacceptable.
;-)
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The temperature dial is about the one thing my passengers are allowed to touch; I'm actually rather pleased if one does. Probably goes back to 2002 when my S60 arrived with dual-zone controls while everyone else I knew was still showing off their on-or-off air conditioning. Spoils the fun a bit now everyone else has it too, of course, but it's amazing how many features of modern cars go entirely unused. Mrs Beest scarcely knew about the Verso's sixth gear and she's protested loudly for over 20 years at any attempt to explain the use of the rev counter.
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Mrs D'Hills on the other hand is a rev counter fan and user ( as indeed I am ) and has also been known to double de-clutch when roused. It was one of her most attractive points when I first met her. That, and her being able to cut something of a dash in her motorcycle leathers were an engaging combination.
;-)
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Touch screen or buttons? - movilogo
