Wrong direction?
Report 3 Mercedes A-Class £28,700 OTR/ £30,830 as tested
Last month I whinged about the lack of a ‘proper’ USB socket; this month I shall turn my attention to the A-Class’s augmented reality satnav. It says a lot about Merc’s family hatch that the user experience is defined more by the digital trinkets than by the way it drives. I will get around to such old-fashioned questions as “is the steering satisfying to use?”, “is it comfortable?” and “are the engine and gearbox actually fun or merely methods of propulsion?” eventually, I promise, but for now we stay firmly on A-Class home turf.
A genuine world-first, this augmented nav, although I’m sure every Merc and many other manufacturers will follow suit soon. It works thusly: as you approach a junction, roundabout or turn-off, the screen splits to half-map, half live-feed from a forward-facing camera. In the distance, you’ll see a blue sign hovering over your turn-off; then, when you get close enough, blue arrows zoom off and around the turn to make sure you don’t miss it. Does it work? Yes. Does it have any significant benefits over just following the blue line on the map? Not really. But let’s not miss the point here – it’s a bit of theatre, a talking point and a first step for a technology that could eventually offer so much more, especially if the info was overlaid on the windscreen, not the display in the middle of the dash. The perfect line when on track, for example, or a ghost of your previous fastest lap to race against, perhaps... if you don’t have any real friends.
Also new and exciting is the voice activation system, now summoned by saying “Hey Mercedes”, which is fine unless you’re dating someone called Mercedes who you like to greet informally inside your car. Anyway, it works without contorting your words like your dad on the phone to the local takeaway, which places it among the best of its kind.