HWM Singapore – August 2019

TEST

AUGUST 2019 | HWM 63

dials, switches, and buttons

are two large electronic

displays — one 10.1-inch

and a smaller 8.6-inch —

that gives you control over

infotainment and some

of the car’s parameters.

Now, my preference is for

physical controls since they

are tactile and it’s easy to

operate without looking —

with muscle memory, you

can easily control them once

you spend enough time

with the car. But, I can say

that Audi’s solution comes

close. I experienced this

system in the A8L some

months back and I quickly

found myself reacquainted

with the A7 Sportback. A

large part of this is because

Audi’s implementation

features haptic and acoustic

feedback, which lets you

know your inputs are

registered. Additionally, the

buttons are large so you can

aff ord to be less precise with

your inputs.

Still, Audi’s interface isn’t

the most intuitive and can

be a bit daunting for  rst

timers —there are a lot of

buttons and options and

it’s not immediately clear

what some of them stand

for. Fortunately, you can

get around this in two ways.

The  rst is to use voice

recognition so you can use

natural language to control

aspects of the car. You can

tell the A7 Sportback to

navigate to an address, call

one of your friends, play

songs, or even adjust the

air-conditioning. It doesn’t

work all the time, but when

it does, it feels like magic.

The second is if you have

a compatible iPhone or

Android phone, you can rely

on Apple CarPlay or Android

Auto and use your phone’s

music app for entertainment

and navigation app to

The A7 Sportback also
gets Audi’s new MMI Touch
Response infotainment
system which debuted in
the A8. In place of physical

In the center armrest is a

compartment with two USB ports

and a Qi wireless charging pad for

recharging your mobile devices.

Watch us try

to buy the

A7 Sportback

in VR!