Gadgetory

Mini's cell all day long on their retro styling and fashionable compact size but just as that act is getting a little old along comes act 2 a smartphone app that helps raise the curtain on connected cars let's drive the 2011 MINI Clubman John Cooper Works and check the tech the enormous sort of iconic speedometer in the modern Mini has long been a silly waste of space a Pixar --is-- caricature of the original car but when you load it up with an LCD screen navigation and new connected technology that real estate becomes pretty desirable ok it's 2011 I'm sitting in a mini and there's one point I want to get across right away I'm over the round goofy thing in their cabin it was funny for a while cute maybe chic that was just annoying it's this whole bulbous salvador dali meets it's a small world and it's just annoying me to no end most importantly though is this interface we have not yet had a mini that has this interface on it this is all new because it has the latest navigation but also mini connected let's take a tour vehicle info is obvious stuff you've got some settings for the system CD multimedia this is going to bring you a variety of choices including we've got our single optical disc slot right here under external devices we're going to find my ipod touch or other iOS device I've got that hooked up on this little pigtail right there you can also of course hook up a USB device like a thumb drive on this same connector now the map resolution is really good its standard BMW stuff you've got this menu on the left that drives me nuts to be honest I just don't find that intuitive at all me if you go along this left-hand side here you've got to kick over to get to this ribbon menu these never become natural for me I never can quite remember what these little icons are so I got up go over each one and pause and wait for the flag doesn't do it for me but maybe your mind works differently most importantly here's mini connected this is the really interesting stuff let's spend a minute looking at this look at all the features mini connected has when you connect your iOS device and no Android yet by the way and I've got the app on my ipod touch it works on ipod touch as well as iPhone I've got a newsfeed this is odd it's mostly mini news but if I want and here's where everyone always gripes like whoa whoa well why are you putting news on the screen well because if you want you can have it read to you as evidenced lightball 2011 was a hit parade of massive proportions but ever stop to wonder how does in the spotlight keep their cool when things heat up and the cameras start rolling wow that sucks I had better text-to-speech on my PC I think in the mid-90s you've got a Facebook utility here again to make this really lean so it's not too distracting but to be honest is still distracting it kind of strips things down and makes them kind of clean here's our Twitter application on the dash and again you can scroll down to these things in a very lean form and you've got unique Twitter tools here favorite or unfavorite retweet so they've done a pretty good job of taking the most popular tools out of the interfaces for Facebook and Twitter and put them here on the car contextual menu doesn't answer all the questions that I get all the time about isn't that insane to have that kind of needless crap distracting you from driving there are lots of canned posts in the app for both Facebook and Twitter none of which read like you actually wrote them but instead like whoever kidnapped you did to make it look like you're okay to Google tools in here Google search and Google sent a car search of course lets me go search for whatever I want and navigate to it call the place what have you a pizza joint whatever you want and Google sent a car would be if you're at a Google Maps and you want to send that to the vehicle you can do that so it goes the other direction from outside the car to in now the controller I'm using to get around everything you see on the screen again it's not touch we do a voice command but I prefer to use the controller and it's an oddball down here it's a version of I Drive but as you can see it's physically implemented very differently here's your home button here's a back button that takes you through previous screens you've been accessing and most importantly here's your controller this little chrome knob sticking up here again you can turn kick it around and press just like an eye drive controller but the shape is completely different some folks are going to find this a little hard to get their hands on it's tiny Oh check this out I've got the Pandora app on my ipod touch got it cabled in like I've been doing for all the many connected stuff and look it when I launched the app it comes up as a source as a function under Mini connected now not at the same time if I have many connected going I get those choices like Facebook Twitter and web radio if I have Pandora running I get that instead so it's not fully integrated but it's nice to have it available to you this doesn't always work on a lot of cars and because our Clubman that asked we've got the turbo motor hasn't changed in a long time on these mini still 1.6 liter sidesaddle 4 with the turbo technology it's all standard s stuff you're going to get 181 horsepower 177 foot-pounds of torque 0 to 60 on this front-wheel drive car is about 6.8 with that manual 6-speed if you get the automatic it gets a little slower down to about 7.1 not dramatically the MPG on this car is 27 35 get the automatic and shave 1 mpg off of each number the Clubman is an odd bird it's a stretch mini that is not quite long enough to warm it back doors not quite short enough not to the barn doors in the back are a stylish retro touch but that big mullion down the middle is pretty annoying now minis used to be the best little point-shoot car on the road they're still really good that way they're fun handling cars but compared to a lot of the other small cars that have come along today they're no longer sort of a class of one the ride is buttoned up dialed in planted all those things you expect fun a really well-made vehicle that has some weight on it I'm glad we've got the manual gearbox in this car I think we had an automatic recently and I was very unimpressed it was also a non S though so let me tell you I'm not big on that straight 1.6 with an automatic that's a dog car you really want to look into getting a turbo on any of these vehicles or at the very least you're going to get a non turbo make sure you get the manual gearbox because that other combination doesn't work this car works nicely it's perky it gets along lings good it's not a planted car even with our our jcw package and the fact that it's an S I could add some more suspension tweaks to this car to really straighten out the this thing the little tippy little leaning and this is really the worst speedometers to get a glance at that needle which is a dark orange against a graphite ring of relatively small typeface for a big speedometer because we have the LCD display is not a good glance and see how fast I'm going speedo you got to kind of stare at it for a minute luckily you've got a digital readout here on the tach just under 33 grand gets you started for this high trim mini again with the John Cooper Works package then there's a lot of adding to do to get it seen that style first off if you want the automatic that's 1250 I'd recommend against it you want the mini connected package for a grand that will get you the LCD screen voice command USB and iPod connectivity Bluetooth including bluetooth streaming then you want to go 750 more to roll in the navigation function within that and finally I'd recommend the premium package which gets you the Harman Kardon audio automatic temperature control special wheels dual panoramic roof and xenon headlights then just find a nice stout putty knife and some paint remover to get those pre fatigue graphics off and you've got a nice car you