Infotainment Review: Ford SYNC 3

We really liked the SYNC 2 iteration of Ford’s infotainment system. It was vibrant, quite well thought out and structured, and feature-rich. We lauded the sensible visual division of labour that carried over to the driver’s side of the dash.

If you wanted to work with audio, there was an obvious area of screen real estate to check, and a flow-on brain logic that a driver would appreciate with a touch-screen interface. The same was true for navigation, climate controls and Bluetooth systems.

With the next iteration of SYNC Ford has taken the opportunity to make both big and small changes; there have been simplifications as well as enhancements. In just about all cases, these are improvements over SYNC 2.

In our test Escape Trend the need for the infotainment to include air conditioning controls is removed, as they are now located in a more traditional area below the SYNC 3 8-inch touch screen. This removes a quarter of the infotainment dependency that was in SYNC 2 – a welcome de-clutter.

This means Ford has dropped the colour matching theme of SYNC 2 in favour of a more traditional layout, as well as a simplified user interface. This begins with the 8-inch touch screen itself, which is a marginal – but still welcome – step up from the previous model; more responsive to touch and easier to use for multi-touch commands such as pinching to zoom and rotate the navigational map screen.

One annoying aspect of the new layout is that the “home” button, as well as any “return” button, is positioned in the top left of the touch-screen. This may be great for the left-hand drive cars of North America and Europe, but for us righties it is a stretch when seated in a well set-up driving position.

Bluetooth pairing is the speediest we have come across. If you’re using an iPhone, remember to turn on synchronisation of alerts – this will allow the automatic read out of received text messages and enable SYNC 3 to compose replies using the even further refined voice command system.

The voice recognition command system was already good in SYNC 2. It gets a minor boost here to incorporate Siri (the Apple personal assistant) and remains one of the best we have tested. It is particularly handy when used for data input into the navigation system.

The navigation system has also had some tweaks resulting in a very competent, feature-rich and usable system. Traffic alerts presented graphically show the average speed of vehicles involved around any incidents ahead.

Point of interest navigation is available, as well as an option to turn on “breadcrumbs” which can track where you have been – handy for any return visit soon after going to an unfamiliar location. Or if you just like turning your map screen into a rendition of PacMan.

In fact, the whole SYNC 3 package is in preference to what Ford highlight in any advertising; the much-lauded Apple Car Play and Android Auto.

Both these systems are integrated with SYNC 3, and this is great if you have any specific apps you wish to use – although, SYNC offers this as an option as well – or if you have content on your phone that you find easier to use through the Car Play or Auto interface.

However, the SYNC 3 system is actually superior to many of the functions presented by these two big tech companies. The navigation system is far better than Apple Maps for example. The audio system, including Bluetooth playback, is easy enough to use without the need to boot up a separate interface.

The SYNC 3 text-to-voice and voice-to-text system is also very competent, allowing you, if you wish, to manage SMS on the go with relative ease.

We also tested the hands-free telephone system in a metropolitan area using a major telco network. The conference call was very clear, enabling us to hear whispered conversations on the other end with ease – resulting in some embarrassment for those concerned.

SYNC 3 provides marginal improvements over the previous system and though it loses some of the dash integration and theming of SYNC 2, it is definitely an improvement and provides everything a modern Ford purchaser would wish to have in his or her new vehicle.