Infotainment Review: Skoda

Skoda's Columbus-based infotainment system has been given a facelift in the latest RS and Scout versions of the Octavia.

Displayed via a vibrant and responsive 8.0-inch touch-screen, the new presentation leaps out from the centre console in a far more demanding way than the previous iteration.

The touch controls are far more responsive and the centre screen features a new gesture control trick that heralds the possibilities of this kind of tech to come.

Moving your hand towards the screen, a sensor detects the motion and reveals typical associated control buttons as required.

This feels natural immediately, minimising the amount of interaction the driver needs.  For example, while the map display will fill the screen, a hand motion will animate navigation controls such as New Destination as required.

Surprisingly, this works very neatly, though we question the safety aspect of having buttons pop up as needed rather than being there constantly. These fears were abated over the time we had with the vehicle as familiarity rose.

Škoda continues the use of a deep green theme on both the crisp multi-function instrument display and the main screen, which offers an agreeable theme and carousel style presentation that would please any modern tablet computer user.

Beyond the static theme colours, this new Skoda offering is all about the customisation. Both the display and audio options can be customised as you please, as well as lighting, mirror and door-lock functions.

The Skoda RS that we drove had 360-degree parking sensors and it's nice to have the option to adjust volume levels and how these alarms integrate with other audio options to reduce any annoyance over the course of ownership.

Speaking of audio options, the Skoda system allows the importation (onto the flash drive) of up to 3000 files sourced from SD, USB, CD or DVD. Video can also be played from DVD, and JPEG format images can be viewed on the 800×480 pixel main screen.

Phone set-up via Bluetooth is simple and again highly customisable to accommodate your usage habits. Voice commands integrate well, allowing natural hands-free control of the phone. The hands-free VC system is also fluid to use with other systems such as the satellite-navigation.

Steering wheel controls remain helpful, though the actual design of the buttons is a bit fiddlier and slightly cheaper in feel than the previous iteration. In terms of functionally they are fine, as you'd expect of Skoda, but we're not big fans of the design choices, which is a small gripe in what overall is an excellent upgrade of the look and feel.

The vehicle status display shows graphically any alerts; for example, in our test vehicle it pin-pointed a slight pressure loss in the front driver-side tyre. It is clear, informative and not as obtrusive or annoying as some minor alert systems can occasionally be.

So overall we're impressed with the changes to the Columbus system in the Octavia RS. The upgraded feature set doesn’t include the more exotic functions of other 'connected' marques, however, the crisper design, improved performance and high level of personalisation are all welcome.