Last night was my first trip in our new Mitsubishi Outlander. I didn't have enough time in it to really wring it out, but hear are a few quick impressions:
1) I love the tailgate. Why all SUVs don't have one like this escapes me. Well, OK, it doesn't escape me...
2) I never did figure out the bluetooth pairing. But I didn't have time to RTFM. Still, you all know my opinion of controls that REQUIRE someone to RTFM.
3) Ditto the Nav systems voice command. The voice is male, which for some reason I dislike. "OK dad, shut up already. Gosh!" But I could not find the screen that allows me to either change it or shut it off. Its got to be in there, so owner's manual diving is in order. Manual-diving, schmanual-diving.
4) The paddles are pretty swift, but its a bit too easy for the shifter to unintentionally wind up in the "sport" mode when yanking it out of park or reverse. "Why won't this thing upshift? Oh. *slaps forehead* Never mind."
5) Love the ride vs. handling balance. Kudos to the suspension calibration team.
6) The front seat seems to have some sort of suspension built into the mount. It has some "give" when I accelerate or brake sharply, and I think it's helping to soak up road roughness too. It feels way too controlled and damped to be a loose seat. I've combed the press materials and called Mitsu, but so far I have no confirmation.
Dan Edmunds, Director of Vehicle Testing @ 4,944 miles
7driver says:
04:27 PM, 05/24/07
Correction: You shouldn't have to RTFM for *frequently used items*. Having to RTFM for something that's infrequently used, say once over the lifetime of the battery seems perfectly acceptable to me as a real world compromise, so long as the laundry list isn't too long.
In my opinion, Bluetooth pairing qualifies as infrequent if the car isn't shared by a bunch of journalists. A real world buyer would pair once, then never have to think about it again for a very long time.
actualsize says:
08:40 AM, 05/25/07
I hear you, and to a certain extent I agree.
But the fact remains that the Bluetooth and Navi options in other cars that come through here are much easier to figure out than this one. These features are becoming prevalent enough that expectations of how they should operate are coming into being. Good ergonomics design is, among other things, about meeting those expectations so controls can be operated without diverting too much attention to the task.
I should include a picture of the owner's manual. It's huge.
crunchycookie says:
03:16 PM, 05/30/07
The voice can indeed be changed from Male to Female; it just takes a bit of digging through the cryptic multi-layered menus.