Yeah, it's pretty sad. I was ready to buy a brand-new Subaru a couple years ago, but they mandated the shitty touch screen in the dash on all new models. Ended up with a used Mazda3. I was very interested in the new ND Miata, but they mandate the dumb LCD screen in the middle of the dash. Nope, not doing that. Seems early 2010s are the last of the good, pre-technology cars. Hopefully the self driving ones come soon before those models are worn out.
In its defense, the Mazda Connect system is pretty nice. It's solely focused on entertainment, navigation, and some secondary car management functions (maintenance intervals, explanation of trouble lights, long-term MPG charts).
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the touchscreen/command knob is the way things are now. You can't do terrestrial radio, satellite radio, bluetooth, USB music playback, etc with a single knob and 20-character display. All of these features have worked their way into being standard now. Nobody ships an AM/FM radio.
And now that backup cameras are mandatory in the USA as of the 2018 model year, you're going to need that LCD display anyway. So it's easier to throw all the HMI/IVI on that board and be done with it.
The Mazda Connect is run off an NXP iMX6 SoC, which is very powerful yet affordable enough to put in Mazda's base models for no upgrade charge. It's also highly hackable. =)
Oh, and HVAC is still done with physical knobs in a convenient location.
You can't do terrestrial radio, satellite radio, bluetooth, USB music playback, etc with a single knob and 20-character display.
The 2nd easiest-to-use interface in our vehicles is the USD$85 Pioneer DIN 1 head unit we put in our '81 VW camper van. It does all of what you list, as well as Pandora and (some other music service). Lots of buttons, not just one knob, but I'll bet that display doesn't do a whole lot more than 20 characters.
The most easy-to-use interface we have is CarPlay on the aftermarket head unit in our '04 Scion xB. Any cars we buy in the future will have CarPlay or no sale. I'm done with crap ass automotive UIs done by some designer trying to make her mark on the world. And though I'm sure some makers have UIs that don't suck, I'm not going to the trouble to find out which. CarPlay or nothing.
A CD player's still convenient on a long road trip when one wants to listen to one's own music, not the radio or the satellite. A phone can only hold so much!
The Mazda Connect has two USB ports in the dashboard. You can charge a phone with one and plug a multi-terabyte portable drive full of MP3s into the other.
> You can charge a phone with one and plug a multi-terabyte portable drive full of MP3s into the other.
Will it recognise an ext4-formatted drive, or does it require FAT, NTFS or something else?
Perhaps there are two people in the car charging their phones?
I really, really don't understand the hatred for CDs. Why, someone downvoted my original comment because I noted that they can be useful for a long road trip! Honestly, I'd expect that to be non-controversial: CDs require no data connexion; they are a physical audio format, which means that they can be converted to MP3, FLAC or whatever else one likes; they are owned by you, unlike a streaming music service's tracks.
As an owner of the new Mazda3, I actually use the builtin nav more than I do the phone one. It's always there, it's always loaded, always initialized, has better organized UI (canceling routes, adding waypoints, etc. needs way less taps than Sygic/Apple Maps/GMaps do) and shows the upcoming navigation events on the projected HUD.
Unfortunately it also runs less smoothly and it's uglier and RDS traffic info is less reliable than phone one. At least for me the simpler UI and phone battery saving rally outweigh the downsides though.
(I got my nav included with the car, but compared to VAG group which charges 1000EUR+ for nav unit, 400EUR didn't seem to be all that much IMO.)
