SPECS AND RATING Model Engine
conditioned to expect one is just plain weird. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it is weird. You don’t have two TV sets sitting next to each other in your living room, but Infiniti seems to be asking, why not? The bottom touchscreen also doesn’t confine key controls to, say, two little corners of the display surface, so you end up touching all over the place and smudging the entire thing with your fingers. After one day it’s icky and disgusting.
Then there’s a standard stopstart included, which is just bad. It can’t compare to its rivals’ seamless systems, which you can’t detect, because Infiniti’s is abrupt and bursts back into life with all the ‘premiumness’ of an earth mover.
The level of safety kit thrown in, however, is highly commendable because you get all sorts of lanekeeping and distance-warning beeps and automatic brakes. This all seems nice, but isn’t, because after a few days you’ll grow irate from the incessant warning beeps as the car simply doesn’t understand ‘Dubai standards’ driving… So I switched them all off.
A positive, you might think, would be the steering. Infiniti ditched the dreaded steer-by-wire found in the bigger Q50S and 3.7-litre models, and stuck with a conventional, mechanically linked rack and pinion steering system. It sort of ends up being an improvement, plainly because it’s so easy to improve on the lifeless steer-by-wire, not because it’s actually very good. It’s artificially weighted, too, and eventually becomes cumbersomely heavy.
No complaints about the actual physical act of steering; turn right, and the car goes right. Repeat in the opposite direction as required. f course, this being the entry-level Q50 2.0L, as it’s badged, the biggest change is the 2.0-litre four-cylinder direct-injection turbocharged engine. The click and clatter of the direct injection makes it sound rough, like a diesel, and the unit’s not really in the same league as BMWor Mercedes four-cylinder turbos in terms of refinement and flexibility. But get away from the lower revs and Infiniti’s 208bhp feels like more, and the car becomes quite urgent on its way to a nice, comfortable 140kph. It’s pleasant on the move, economical too. In fact that’s what it is, economical, considering the amount of stuff you get for Dh145,000. Everything, basically, except the right badge.