Ford Focus MHEV Estate
Our family-friendly estate impresses on its screen test
SCREENS are everywhere today, and the interiors of new cars are becoming ever-more dominated by them.
This means that car makers are now also in the software business and having good software in a car can make owning the vehicle a far more pleasant experience. Ford’s latest attempt is called SYNC 4 and we’ve been getting to grips with it via the 13. 2-inch touchscreen in our Focus Estate.
I’ll admit straight away that I have major doubts about touchscreens in cars. It might be more expensive to engineer a climate control dial that glides with mechanical precision than it is to write some extra code, but show me a touchscreen that people prod for the sheer pleasure of it. Far more importantly, touchscreens add complexity that can distract you from driving.
Ours is one of the better ones we’ve tried recently, though. The screen on the centre of the dash is standard on every model and contains almost all the climate control and audio functions, plus settings for the car’s minor systems. The only exceptions are a knob for the volume, buttons for the air-recirculation and maximum windscreen defrost, and the steering wheel shortcuts.
This might alarm technophobes, but all of the key climate and heating functionality is always available in a bar on the bottom of the screen. You can tweak the temperature with one press, or make bigger changes quickly with a press and slide motion.
It’s a trait of Ford’s system that the areas you need to press on the screen are quite large, so using them at a glance isn’t as tricky as it can be with some other systems. One exception is the ‘home’ button, a small circle that is tricky to press on the move.
The screen is also divided into tiles so the key functions are always in view, reducing the amount of touches to access menus. Ford has resisted the urge to get overly fancy with the on-screen graphics, and keeping everything large and clear like this cuts the time that your eyes are off the road – though not by as much as old-school buttons would.
Of course, more and more motorists are forgoing their cars’ software in favour of their phones’, and the integration with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay is pretty seamless. My Android phone pairs reliably with the Focus when I approach the car, and it’s one of the easiest systems I’ve tried for switching between phone and car software. If you’re using your phone’s navigation, the directions still appear on the screen and head-up display (a £400 option), just as they would with the in-built system.
However, the way Ford’s tablet works with the rest of the cabin isn’t particularly seamless. Even in up-spec Active Vignale trim, with improved materials and quilted leather seats, the interior design feels dated next to more modern rivals’.
In effect, Ford has brought the tech up to date in an older car. The fourth-generation
Focus has been on sale since 2018, and this year’s facelift added the enlarged screen and SYNC 4. Lower-grade plastics on the interior door handles don’t help the impression of quality, because you use them so often.
But while you will find family hatchbacks and SUVs that initially look and feel more modern, few of them can trump the Focus for usability. Like the on-screen experience, stuff in the Focus does tend to work well.