We’re massive followers of the Kia Telluride crossover right here at Autoblog, and we’re particularly enthused with its built-in tech options. In truth, we love Kia’s digital gizmos a lot that we gave a few of them our 2020 Expertise of the 12 months award.
However as well-executed as Kia’s driver security suite could also be, that is not what we’re interested by right this moment. That honor goes to the infotainment system, and whereas the 2 applied sciences branches intersect, our focus goes to be on navigating the touchscreen and cluster menus with which you will work together each day. The Telluride comes normal with an 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system and three.5-inch TFT cluster show, however the 2021 SX mannequin we’re testing right here has the upgraded, 10.25-inch touchscreen unit and 7-inch, full-color cluster show. The controls for each variants are basically the identical, although the menus will seem completely different, and a few choices mentioned right here won’t be current on decrease trims.
Because it seems, Kia’s infotainment tech is simply as strong and helpful as its embedded security programs. The {hardware} behind this suite is greater than highly effective sufficient for a crisp, responsive expertise, and Kia allows you to do some some customization on high of an already versatile default setup. This infotainment system can be suitable with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, each of that are managed by way of the touchscreen interface.
Among the finest options of this method is totally realized with the ten.25-inch touchscreen we’ve got right here, and that is the widescreen actual property. This lets you have as many as three widgets open concurrently (nav instructions, audio and climate by default). It additionally affords you the flexibleness of increasing a kind of core apps and retaining a second tile open within the remaining 1/third of the display.
This allows you to make use of the extra superior controls inside whichever app wants your pressing consideration with out fully dismissing one other merchandise that could be useful. Say you are navigating to a wierd place, however your co-driver desires to discover a new track or podcast to take heed to. As you’ll be able to see within the above proper view, this retains your map up simply in case it’s good to look at it, however permits your passenger to dive deep into the satellite tv for pc radio menu. Crucially, it additionally allows you to sustain Apple CarPlay or Android Auto whereas nonetheless retaining tabs on native programs like navigation or the audio controls. Going backwards and forwards is usually a degree of frustration in different automobiles.
Toyota provides an analogous widescreen presentation, and whereas we like that too, Kia’s is in the end superior due to some small, however important design and structure decisions.
Kia’s placement of the settings for its driver-oriented programs can be intelligent. All of those are accessed by way of the cluster, moderately than buried inside a automobile settings menu within the infotainment display. This not solely simplifies the menus, however makes them extra accessible to the motive force in the event that they should be modified on-the-fly. The motive force want solely look down and toggle by means of the accessible choices utilizing the wheel-mounted menu management buttons. Simple-peasy.
This suite is strong, versatile and customizable, however nonetheless very intuitive to make use of. We might definitely rank it among the many greatest within the mainstream phase, alongside sister model Hyundai’s suite and FCA’s Uconnect, and above the likes of Toyota, Honda and Mazda.
