00:00 Skoda is kicking some goals at the moment with infotainment systems.
00:03 We know that they share their infotainment system with Volkswagen, but there is a few
00:06 extra bits and pieces that Skoda fits, so let's have a detailed look at the Skoda Columbus
00:11 infotainment system.
00:14 So this is your home screen.
00:15 You access that by hitting the home button.
00:17 It shows you navigation, telephone, where you can add your favourites, and then also
00:20 radio, and then you can basically go through each of these menus.
00:24 What you'll notice is that as you approach with your finger, you can see the additional
00:29 context menus pop up, and that's because of this little strip down here.
00:32 There's some gesture functions that I'll run you through in just one moment, but let's
00:36 start here with navigation.
00:38 This is the main navigation screen.
00:39 You can scroll around, zoom in, zoom out.
00:42 There's automatic zoom, shortcuts to find the car again.
00:45 You can also change whether you want to go from automatic or fix a rate of zoom, and
00:50 as you approach with your finger there, you see the extra context menus appear.
00:53 You can use voice recognition, or if you do want to manually enter addresses, you simply
00:58 go through and type them in here, either as points of interest or full addresses.
01:03 Generally it works pretty well.
01:04 Let's try typing in Melbourne Airport.
01:06 There you go.
01:08 So that's immediately starting to find everything that we need.
01:11 It's really nice and fast as well, quite responsive.
01:14 So the navigation menu is good.
01:16 You also get traffic built into that as well.
01:18 So let's jump over to the menu where we have radio.
01:22 In here you have FM, AM, DAB plus digital radio.
01:25 So there's a full raft of stations there, but like Ford's sync system, it basically
01:31 makes you go through bands.
01:33 So here you can see one band, and then for me to get to the next one, I've got to select
01:36 it and then wait for it to pop up.
01:38 I don't understand why they can't all just be displayed in one screen.
01:41 It's kind of weird that it has to then break them up and you need to go looking through
01:45 different sections.
01:46 It'd be easier if they were all just alphabetical order.
01:49 Telephones, same story.
01:50 Once you're connected with Bluetooth, it all works as it will.
01:54 In addition to phone connectivity, you have smartphone mirroring with Apple CarPlay, Android
01:58 Auto and MirrorLink.
02:00 That's all controlled with a cable you plug in and then your phone is mirrored onto there.
02:04 It's all widescreen functionality too, so the screen actually looks really nice and
02:08 crisp when you have your phone mirroring onto the car.
02:11 And the advantage of that is that you can use your phone's voice recognition system,
02:14 which uses the cloud and third parties for extra functionality and also things like sending
02:19 messages.
02:20 So that's a really great feature.
02:22 If we jump back over to the menu, media, you have media storage built into the car so you
02:26 can copy music to the car's internal hard drive.
02:29 But most of the time these days people are simply using things like Spotify or third
02:35 party streaming services that they access through their smartphone mirroring.
02:38 Now the gesture controls, check this out.
02:40 If I want to swipe to the next menu, it even gives you a sound effect, which is pretty
02:46 cool.
02:47 Vehicle, this is what I love about the Skoda.
02:50 So in front of me I have another digital display.
02:54 I can configure everything that's on that display here.
02:56 So if I click on virtual cockpit, instantly I can flick through these menus and change
03:01 the things that are appearing in front of me.
03:03 And then I can simply auto, classic, there's a number of different views I can select and
03:07 they automatically update ahead of the driver so you have all of that information ahead
03:11 of you all of the time.
03:13 The other cool thing, because this is a four wheel drive, I have four wheel drive information.
03:17 So you have a compass, you have the inclination, so how far up, down or sideways you are, and
03:23 also your altitude, how far above sea level are you.
03:25 And these can all then be changed around to display different parts there.
03:29 So that's a handy feature to have.
03:31 Driving data is also useful when it comes to cars like this.
03:34 This is a diesel, it's a fuel efficient car.
03:36 This keeps tabs of how much fuel you're using and also how green you're being.
03:40 So you can see here we have a rating of 84.
03:43 That means we've been very friendly with the throttle there.
03:46 And then you even have a secondary screen that tells you how you're going since you
03:50 refuelled and how much energy you've recouped with the stop start system as well.
03:55 You've also got a lap timer in here.
03:57 So if we go to the sport menu, you can time your laps if you're at the Nurburgring going
04:01 for a blad.
04:02 Then you've got other sport displays as well.
04:04 Same story, you can just swipe up and down to have those displayed here.
04:07 I love the G meter too, that's pretty awesome.
04:10 Back to the menu, we have the rest of the functions.
04:12 So SmartLink is our connectivity with smartphones.
04:15 We also have media command.
04:17 Now this is a fascinating menu because this allows us to configure our wireless LAN and
04:21 our mobile hotspot.
04:22 So that's useful if you have kids, they have iPads and that kind of thing.
04:25 They can connect to the single hotspot and that's shared throughout the car.
04:29 So you have one data connection and then multiple users.
04:32 So that is a really, really cool feature to have.
04:34 And it uses the car's internal antenna to allow you to connect.
04:37 Which means if you've got the phone over here, it doesn't matter if the kids are in the third
04:40 row, they're still able to connect reliably.
04:42 Finally, if we go over to the air conditioning menu, I find this quite fascinating because
04:47 you have a number of different options to set climate zones throughout the cabin.
04:50 You've also got a menu called Air Care.
04:53 And Air Care Climatronic is a certain type of filter that's fitted to this car.
04:58 And it's able to optimise its function to filter pollen and also increase the quality
05:03 of air that you have in your cabin.
05:05 So it's not like the biosecurity mode you have with a HEPA filter in a Tesla, but it
05:09 still is an improved air quality inside the cabin.
05:12 So that is a pretty handy feature to have.
05:15 This is a fantastic system, 9.2 inches in size.
05:19 Skoda has absolutely nailed functionality here.
05:21 It's very easy to use, presented beautifully.
05:23 And it also means that you have to spend less time with your eyes off the road.
05:27 You can read the full Skoda Columbus infotainment review at carexpert.com.au.
05:31 You can get your feedback as well.
05:34 Do you own a Skoda?
05:35 Have you used the Columbus infotainment system?
05:37 What's it like to use day to day?
05:39 Let us know in the comments below.
Comments