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Best car infotainment systems: From UConnect to MBUX, these are our favorites

Declaring one infotainment system the best over any other is an inherently subjective matter. You can look at quantitative testing for things like input response time and various screen load times, but ask a room full of people that have tried all car infotainment systems what their favorite is, and you’re likely to get a lot of different responses. For the most part, the various infotainment systems available all share a similar purpose. They aim to help the driver get where they're going with navigation, play their favorite tunes via all sorts of media playback options and allow folks to stay connected with others via phone connectivity. Of course, most go way beyond the basics these days and offer features like streaming services, in-car performance data and much more. Unique features are aplenty when you start diving through menus, but how they go about their most important tasks vary widely. Some of our editors prefer systems that are exclusively touch-based and chock full of boundary-pushing features. Others may prefer a back-to-basics non-touch system that is navigable via a scroll wheel. You can compare it to the phone operating system wars. Just like some prefer Android phones over iPhones, we all have our own opinions for what makes up the best infotainment interface. All that said, our combined experience tells us that a number of infotainment systems are at least better than the rest. WeÂ’ve narrowed it down to five total systems in their own subcategories that stand out to us. Read on below to see our picks, and feel free to make your own arguments in the comments. Best infotainment overall: UConnect 5, various Stellantis products Ram 1500 Uconnect Infotainment System Review If thereÂ’s one infotainment system that all of us agree is excellent, itÂ’s UConnect. It has numerous qualities that make it great, but above all else, UConnect is simple and straightforward to use. Ease of operation is one of the most (if not the single most) vital parts of any infotainment system interface. If youÂ’re expected to be able to tap away on a touchscreen while driving and still pay attention to the road, a complex infotainment system is going to remove your attention from the number one task at hand: driving. UConnect uses a simple interface that puts all of your key functions in a clearly-represented row on the bottom of the screen. Tap any of them, and it instantly pulls up that menu.

VW, Jeep and Cadillac top list of most-tattooed car brands

Most car enthusiasts own at least one piece of gear with their favorite brand's logo on it. It can be a T-shirt, a pen, a hat, or a garage sign, for example. It takes a much greater degree of dedication to get a car-themed tattoo, and a study suggests this sky-scraping level of obsession is most often found in Volkswagen, Jeep, and Cadillac fans. Compare the Market analyzed Instagram hashtags and posts to compile a list of the most commonly tattooed brands. Volkswagen came out on top, with 5,507 posts; note that anything related to the Wolfsburg-based brand earns it a point, whether it's a logo, a cutaway diagram of the Beetle's air-cooled flat-four engine, or a Touareg V10's firing order. Jeep finished second with 2,139 posts, followed by Cadillac at 1,775 posts. Surprisingly, the fourth spot is occupied by Pontiac, which appeared in 1,609 posts in spite of the fact that it hasn't built a car since 2010. Holden appears near the very bottom of the top-20 chart, ahead of Lamborghini, and its result might be influenced by the fact that General Motors announced plans to shutter it earlier in 2020. BMW and Mercedes-Benz are in sixth and 12th place, respectively. Alfa Romeo doesn't appear in the top 20, though its decades-old Quadrifoglio logo (pictured) can easily be mistaken for a symbol of Irish luck. Searching for posts that show a tattoo of a specific model uncovered even bigger surprises. According to the same study, the most-tattoed nameplate is the Chevrolet Impala, which appears in 823 posts. Odds are the earlier generations, like Dr. Dre's famous six-four, are more often tattooed than the final-generation model, which unceremoniously went out of production in February 2020 without a direct replacement waiting in the wings. Second place goes to the DeLorean DMC-12, which has transcended its status as an esoteric fiasco on wheels thanks to its role as a time machine in "Back to the Future." It appeared in 800 posts. Chevrolet's Corvette takes a distant third with 180 posts, followed by the Volkswagen Beetle (147 posts) and the Mini Cooper (116 posts). All told, car-themed tattoos are relatively rare. To put some of the aforementioned numbers into context, searching Instagram for the hashtag Volkswagen yields over 15 million posts, while the hashtag tattoo appears in over three million publications. Auto News Cadillac Chevrolet Jeep

2020 Cadillac CT5 prototype shows off more lighting details

The elusive 2020 Cadillac CT5 luxury sports sedan has once again been spotted by a spy photographer. This time, we get to see it from all angles, whereas last time we only saw it from the front. It still has quite a bit of fake body work, and it's very clear Cadillac still hopes you'll think this is a Charger, from the big hood scoop to the fake full-width taillights. Digging past those misdirects, we can find some new details about the car. First, the car's front lighting has developed further. There are production-ready headlights fitted that appear to have some sort of LED illumination. These production lights also fit the shape we saw on the last prototype, so they'll end high up on the body, extending slightly horizontally toward the grille. There's still a section that extends back along the fender, seeming to bridge the gap between current Cadillacs and the Escala concept from which this car takes inspiration. Another addition are the vertical LED accent lights. This is another trademark feature of both current Cadillacs and the Escala, but they were absent from the last prototype we saw. We also get a look at some of the grille's details. Instead of slats, this CT5 has a plastic mesh of small rectangles. The pattern is reminiscent of brickwork. These photos also give us our first look at the back of the CT5. It looks like a fairly typical Cadillac. It's much more conservative than the front end. There are some angular cutouts in the bumper to allow exhaust gases out. The taillights have the current Cadillac look with the top curving over the rear fender. We can't tell if there will be a horizontal element like on the Escala, due to the fake lights. We're expecting the CT5 to be shown sometime next year in time for the 2020 model year. Odds are it will use off-the-shelf Cadillac engines including the turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder, naturally aspirated 3.6-liter V6, and the twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6. Now that Cadillac has revealed its twin-turbo 4.2-liter V8, we'll be interested to see if that shows up in a future CT5-V. Related Video: Featured Gallery Cadillac CT5 prototype spy shots View 23 Photos Image Credit: SpiedBilde Spy Photos Cadillac Luxury Sedan cadillac ct5 cadillac escala