How do you pick the best feature of a world-famous, class-beating sedan? A car that defines the gold-standard for compact executive sedan cars, that’s a global bestseller.
It’s difficult, because BMW’s new 3-Series has it all; great exterior design, a comfortable, modern interior, a superb range of engines, promises awesome driving experience, and brilliant sedan performance.
Well, one of the things that we really like about BMW’s new 2023 car, is that it’s packed with really cool technology. The engineers and technicians at BMW strive to ensure that the latest tech is always on-board the flagship model, and the 2023 version is no exception.
In our opinion, it’s this on-board tech that gets the gold star. There’s so much of it, we’ve had to narrow down a few of its best bits.
New Blended Cockpit Display System
BMW have given the interior tech of the 2023 model a supercool makeover. They refer to the changes as “Numerous innovative technologies which allow driver and vehicle to communicate with one another comfortably.”
When you first get into the car, it’s the new curved digital display that immediately catches your eye. It’s massive! There’s more glass in front of you than there was before. A new 14.9” display screen sits alongside the digital instrument cluster that stretches its way along half the dashboard. The curved design allowed it to wrap itself around the driver like a surround-sound cinema screen, but on a much smaller scale.
The slim, frameless, touch-screen computer display gives the illusion that your sitting behind one continuous screen, and it dominates the interior space. BMW first introduced this type of infotainment system in the iX SUV, and it’s loaded with BMW’s iDrive 8 software. They’ve beefed up the system’s Voice Response software too, so you can bark out more orders at it without having to move a finger, but Gensture Control is still available.
The only slightly negative thing about it, is the way that the new screen is mounted on the dashboard. The thin bracket mountings look like a DIYer has been in the car and hurriedly bolted the hi-tech glassware on to the dash. A more flush mounted configuration would be more aesthetic.
The nice thing about the size of the curved screen is that you can display several apps on it. So you can pull up BMW’s cloud-based Navigation system to monitor your location, you can keep an eye on how the car’s performing in a separate view, and you can watch your favorite YouTube video, all at the same; if you wish.
The new system uses 5G connectivity, so getting your phone connected up and surfing the internet is a breeze. BMW says that you can connect up to ten devices to it. We’re not sure why you’d need that many, but it should easily cope with the kid’s phones, iPads and Xboxs.
You Can Forget About The Key Fob
Another very useful feature that BMW have introduced with iDrive 8 is Digital Key. It allows you to use your smartphone as your car key. Okay, we know that Tesla has been doing this for ages, but it was only going to be a matter of time before German carmakers caught up.
With Digital Key you can unlock your 3-Series just by placing your phone in close proximity to the driver’s door. So with your smartphone in your pocket, and without even muttering the words ‘Open Sesame’, the car doors will magically unlock as you approach it. A comfort light will then come on, and welcome you inside. After entering the car, to start it, all you need to do is push the start button. So, you can leave the key fob home, if you so wish.
If you’re the trusting type, you can authorize five other people with this capability. That means that they can use their mobile phones to take your BMW for a spin, or they can just play with the central locking. This is all done through the ‘My BMW’ app, which has the power to unlock, lock and start the car.
A Couple Of Very Useful Assistants
New cars are all about automation, and we love new tech. The 3-Series has a couple of digital add-ons which we think are also worth mentioning. Things that just make life easier. The first is ‘Personal Digital Assistant’. This has a software option called ‘My Habits’ which can memorize your driving settings, and replay them at your command.
So an example might be you addressing the car (via voice recognition) with this; “Hey BMW, activate Sport settings”. If you have activated the ‘My Habits’ feature, the car will automatically switch itself into Sport mode.
The other useful feature is Reversing Assistant. This tech can memorize and store steering movements. It can capture the previous 50 meters traveled, and hold the information in the car’s memory bank.
So, if your parked up in a very narrow spot, and you think that you might just scrape the car if you attempt to move it, you can press a button and the car will take over. It’ll navigate itself out, using the same movements it did before. BMW says that it can be used in “Challenging situations such as narrow roads, cul-de-sacs or tight parking spaces”.
The new 2023 BMW 3-Series is very likely to be another huge success for the German car company, and the reason for that is simple; with such amazing tech on-board – what’s not to like about it?
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Read More:This Is The Best Feature Of The 2023 BMW 3 Series
2022-05-22 20:00:00
