Home page » Car Tech

Search:

Refine search for Car Tech

First, Nissan Connect sat-nav performs full seven digit postcode searching. Key in a postcode on the touch-screen – there’s no voice command here, give it a few seconds thinking time and Bob’s your uncle. All you have to do is drive, obey the voice and/or on-screen instructions and ‘you will arrive at your destination’. That said, the route you may take might seem circuitous in the extreme. Also, should you disobey the sat-nav lady she will frown at you through the panoramic roof from her satellite above, and she’ll be very slow to realise and admit that your chosen route is actually far better than hers.

The 5in colour screen with 2D/3D map display isn’t the biggest, or most sophisticated, but it features a useful Autozoom function and it’s all you really need. Furthermore, the Connect nav system is highly intuitive; I was able to use pretty much all its functions almost from scratch, and without furrowed brow or swearing. Believe me, if I can do that then so could you.



The full European map info (approx 4GB worth), along with stored locations, Places of Interest etc. is stored on a dash-mounted SD card. These cards are updated once a year and supplied only by your friendly Nissan dealer. According to Nissan, no other SD cards will work, they can’t be copied either from or onto, they don’t work in any other device and they have no other function. Up to around 100,000 (yes, one hundred thousand, it says here) POIs can be uploaded to Connect via the car’s USB, although an Esso station supposedly close to the TrustedReviews offices and already stored in the memory was a pure figment of the SD card’s imagination. Lucky I wasn’t running on fumes at the time…




The nav system is supported by traffic info or TMC – Traffic Message Channel. In the UK, France and Germany this is a subscriber service paid for by Nissan. In Belgium, where, based on much previous experience, I elected to disobey the satnav lady, we were constantly informed that there was traffic disruption ahead, even when there weren’t any hold-ups of significance. However, I’m not knocking the Qashqai’s TMC – it’s certainly a useful function – but I’d need more time with it to form a properly conclusive view.



This Qashqai’s reversing/rear view camera could be mentioned under either the infotainment, entertainment or navigation headings, so we’ll show a screenshot here. I was sceptical when I first came across these several years ago (on the Nissan Primera in fact), but the more I use them the more I like them, especially when the rear’s loaded to the roof and you’re reversing near a nursery school at chucking out time.

Add your comment

© 2003-2009 TrustedReviews & IPC Media
About Us | Contact Us | Legal | Privacy | RSS