2014 Acura MDX AWD Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

2014 Acura MDX AWD Long-Term Road Test

Our 2014 Acura MDX has a touchscreen system with virtual buttons to control certain functions.

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dgcamero

Wow one place where MyFordTouch actually gets it as un-wrong as possible.

stovt001_

"What I mean is the seat heater failed to ignite." - That only happens in Toyotas.

blueprint1

Now, try this with gloves. WARM gloves, at -30°.

Touchscreens bring unnnecessary complexity to simple, eyes-off tasks. Like driving.

boff_

Horrible, horrible ergonomics. Shame.

allthingshonda

A case of "you can't win no matter what you do". Acura has been criticized for years for too many buttons. So they got rid of the buttons and replaced them with a multi screen system. Now you hate touch screens. For the record I prefer the buttons just for this reason. On my too many button Acura I simply press the seat heater button and it's on.

richardmayo

Could not agree more about the hatred of touch screens in a car. The 3 dial climate control, with additional buttons for seat warmers is so much better.

ed341

I think my vehicle has the ideal blend of actual controls and touch screen settings. The climate control, heated seats, volume and even suspension height are real buttons, the navigation input and audio adjustments are touch screen based. It almost makes sense for a driving environment..

metalmania

I recently attended the annual new car show in my area. I honestly have to say the proliferation of touch screens (and just screens in general) is a turnoff for me. The phrase "these buttons (which weren't actual buttons) suck!" was repeated often. We've now got a number of vehicles where even the primary gauges are just reconfigurable screens in the instrument cluster. I really, really don't like that. Climate controls honestly should be a few real buttons and dials. I would prefer the screens to be only for audio and navigation systems, and they really need to be quick and intuitive. It's like they're cramming all this tech in just to say they have more features than the next guy. When you consider that some of them (soon to be all perhaps with new legislation) lock out a number of features once the car is rolling, it just seems to add frustration to the driving experience.

joner800

"There isn't a square inch on the typical touchscreen that isn't used as a virtual button for something."

Try UConnect; in my opinion, the best touchscreen interface out there for the speed, ease of use (rarely are there sub-sub-submenus, unless youre using parts of the menu that are disabled while driving, like travel guides or actual vehicle settings), and the fact that there are dedicated widgets at the bottom of the screen to easily navigate through menus. go figure: dedicated virtual buttons on a touchscreen..!

spackman

For the life of me, I cannot understand why car companies are moving in this direction. I work in software and User Interface (UI) is a particular area of interest for me, and this kind of thing is bad. I really like the MDX and am considering one, but this touch interface really has me thinking twice.