BMW X1 review

It is possible that many prospective buyers will be won over by the new X1 simply by taking a seat in it. Step out of something like a Volvo XC40 or Alfa Romeo Tonale and into our high-spec test car and you’re likely to be blown away by not only the materials but also the space and practicality on offer.

The roominess won’t be a surprise if you’re trading up from the outgoing X1, but for anyone else, yes, here’s a BMW you might buy for its class-leading boot space and rear leg room, as well as useful touches such as the rear bench that slides in two sections (a £300 option), various hooks and cubbies in the boot and a floating centre console with lots of storage space.

In the front, it’s all very modern and starship flight deck thanks to solid-feeling aluminium structures everywhere, mechanical-feeling door pulls, soft materials where you want them, and finely machined metal speaker grilles.

VW’s climate controls come in for a fair bit of criticism, but at least you can tap it with two fingers to turn on the heated seats. In the X1, that requires a trawl through the touchscreen.

Matt Prior

Editor-at-large

However, start driving and things fall apart. Not literally, of course: build quality is very solid. BMWs used to be a model of usability, but the user interface on this latest generation has taken a leap backwards. BMW seems to be walking into the same traps that Volkswagen is now vowing to climb out of.

All of the climate controls have migrated to the screen, which needn’t be a problem if it wasn’t so messily implemented. As an example, to set the heated seat to maximum and then go back to the navigation screen, you need to tap on the climate icon, tap the + button five times, then tap the NAV button to go back. As a bonus, if the heated seats are on a low setting, the display won’t show that they’re on.

The gauge cluster, which is digital on all versions, is another victim of style over substance. It has whizzy graphics and the resolution is very sharp, but none of the displays are particularly clear and they leave a lot of the screen real estate unused. Want to display the map and the average fuel consumption at the same time? There’s space, but BMW won’t let you.

Infotainment

It is almost a cliché to compare other car makers’ infotainment systems with BMW’s iDrive, because it’s so complete and easy to use. Or rather, it was, because the latest software revamp has only made the menus more confusing. Cheaper models such as the X1 also lose the signature rotary controller.

BMW’s new graphics are crisp and modern, the screen is responsive, the Harman Kardon audio system sounds good and the nav is often better than Google Maps at avoiding traffic.

However, the software change means you need to take your eyes off the road for far too long as you search through menu after menu, and swipe through an endless list of ‘apps’. For instance, there are three different ‘settings’ apps, and the settings we needed were never quite where we expected them to be. BMW would tell you to use voice control, but that often failed to interpret navigation destinations, and if you ask it to change one of the hard-to-find settings, it simply responds with: “I can’t do that.”