Gadgetory

it was CNET's Tech car of the year when it first came out Automobile Magazine named it their favorite car of the year so did Esquire magazine for Christ's sakes what is it we all love so much about the Audi 7 let's drive this 2013 Audi s7 find out check the tech now without he really did with the seven is combined high heeled pumps with sensible shoes I mean this car is gorgeous and spacious tough trick and when and if they ever dramatically restyle it I think it's going to be a sad day spot and s.vs a standard a seven by it's unique grille and face quite different on the front as are the wheels look for lower body moldings that are body colored and also these satin finish mirrors now the cabin of the s7 is particularly macho if you will you've got this sort of vintage racer tufted diamond pleat on the seat here's our pop-up screen that gives us the g-wiz of this thing coming out and also the g-wiz of what it presents Howdy's navigation system is one of the best out there I like the way it presents almost everything in terms of operating still the same MMI interface for zones here mapped to four buttons down here around the controller notice on this car we've got the Google Earth services built-in so it's got Google Earth satellite imagery once you get out to let's say this level here 3/4 mile view along with that Google Earth imagery you've got local search to find destinations and all that's done through this little SIM card connection right here you don't need to pair your smartphone to this guy to get connected now let's talk media system on this car lots of choices they start back here into the sneaky door alongside the sim you've got two SD card slots I don't find that tremendously interesting more interesting your bluetooth streaming for which on my Android phone I'm getting good meta tag information that's quite a win on Android now the one that's grayed out here that would be your Audi media interface it lives here in the console the reason it's not connected is because as you can see here we've got the old-style 30-pin dock connector now getting away from infotainment the cabin tech really takes off with driver assistance tech in this car first of all we have adaptive cruise control which is where you set the speed and the follow distance but on top of that it's got stop-and-go technology if you get into stop and go traffic the car will come to a stop and then when traffic starts again it will automatically resume after the radar in the front sees that happen and the camera up here behind the mirror scans for pedestrians first Lane Assist technology on this car is active if this same camera which can read not just lines but colors of lines detects that you're drifting and your signals not on in that direction it uses the electro hydraulic steering rack to steer you back and also give you a stick shake on the wheel if you set it that way that same camera also looks out there for speed limit science and can read them and puts those on the interface of the car to let you know what the speed limit is here now I'm really sad our car does not have the night vision with pedestrian detection and head up display that is something I want to check out in the real world on these Audi's and finally we have parking assist technology we've seen this in a lot of other cars that cost a lot less than this one for example but it will get you into a parallel parking spot as long as it is at least 31 inches longer than the car that's actually a pretty tight spot now a big part of the story on an S versus an a7 is here in the engine bay completely different powerplant your standard a7 is a 3 liter supercharged v6 this guy has a 4 litre twin-turbocharged v8 night-and-day 420 horsepower versus 310 406 foot-pounds of torque versus 325 0 to 60 is almost a second different 4 5 vs. 5 4 and that's in spite of the s7 weighing about 300 pounds more mpg almost identical 1727 for the S 18:28 for a standard 7 and completely different transmission on the S this guy has a 7-speed dual-clutch automated manual only the a7 has a 8-speed Tiptronic automatic though both cars are Quattro all-wheel drive of course lots of ingredients in this cake let's see how it comes out and the first thing I love about this s7 is even though it is only available with a dual-clutch automated manual it drives almost exactly like a well-tuned automatic and that's a good thing for everyday livability I like the blind spot tech in this car big bright lights in the mirror housings that actually get my attention they get even brighter and more frantic if I signal into someone who's on that side and of course you've got many ways to shift this guy to change the personality of the vehicle if you go over here to the gate and then you get on the paddles and you start to shift this thing or change the mode to one of the aggressive modes you can really lighten this car up or put it in comfort mode and it really come becomes a boat to be honest it got almost wallowing which is nice when you're just floating down the highway when you put this car into its most aggressive personality through that Audi Drive select everything changes the steering the suspension the way the transmission deals with the engine the way the engine holds rpms and even the way the exhaust this is perhaps the most widely configurable car we've ever driven all that said I will give you who are shopping Audi against BMW one last thing to think about the BMW comparable model always feels much gutsy er this car feels more elegant more finesse this cars Roger more BMW is Sean Connery I don't mean that as a diss I know some people daren't big and more but he did his thing his way with much more of an elegance Connery was much more of kind of a gutsy guy that's a pretty good analogy let's price this technical wonder that has hot sauce splashed all over it s7 is going to start at seventy nine seven let's call it eighty grand then you want the innovation package to go CNET style with one check box 5,600 bucks brings in the lane-departure technology the blind spot tech the night vision with pedestrian detection adaptive cruise with stop and go you also get the cornering cameras self-park is in there there's all kinds of goodies for what I think is kind of a steal of Frost Oh