Gadgetory

used to be that the Camry and the Accord pretty much divvied up the broad boring middle of the auto business and didn't leave much to eat for anybody else now they've got hungry new competitors Ford's fusion Nissan Altima Chevy Malibu Hyundai Sonata they all want something to eat let's see if the new 2013 Honda Accord can get it done as we check the tech I'll be honest when I went in to pick this car down in the CNET garage I couldn't find it for about a minute not that it was hidden the garage was almost empty but the car didn't stand out to me it just looks like a car now the Accord has gotten a lot of knocks for being kind of bland for a long time but I must say what they've done here if not notable is at least more luxurious and has more presence or gravitas in general the dimensions on this car the exact same width as the outgoing Accord two or three inches shorter that's quite a bit of a difference fifty to a hundred pounds lighter and several mpg better city and highway the first thing you notice is beep or at least I did is everything is really substantial it's really grown up into a grown-up's car everything is sort of you know maturely elegant another thing I noticed a lot of you have asked about is how's the Headroom this car actually has I think almost two inches less measured Headroom than the outgoing 2012 but I don't feel it in fact when I got in this car I thought it had amazing headin all the cords now have that eight inch screen they call it the Honda imid they've done this in various cars this is the most elaborate version yet its standard as a way to get to things like media and also see some of your driving statistics or if you want for some reason just put the clock up there your main function is going to be audio you can option this guy up into nav but to do that you've got to go to a higher trim level the EXL and above have nav so now is not so much an option as it is a trim level feature spec by the way if you get nav this whole button panel here gets replaced with a touchscreen control panel it's a little bit overkill from what I've seen I haven't driven the car equipped that way yet so I'll hold off judgment for the e.x trim which you're likely to buy this is what you've got these buttons here you have a turn and a push to enter on this guy there's no jog wheel because there's nowhere to jog you just rotate to go to places all the cords have a rear camera to go with the fact that all the cords have that big screen it's relatively advanced you've got trajectory and distance in there if you get a higher trim Accord you also get multi angle views now on the theme of driver assistance you can also get forward collision warning on this car that's packaged in with adaptive cruise control they use the same technology you can get a lane departure warning system as well but even our e^x has this interesting technology check it out I do a right-hand turn signal and the camera on the right wing mirror comes on this is their version of blind spot tech as opposed to radar that warns you that something's back there they just show you what's back there through that camera on the other hand it can be a little disorienting think about it I'm looking at that screen looking forward to see what's behind me and on the left side of the screen is what's on the right side of the car beyond that there are no major surprises am/fm no HD radio at this trim level your CD is this slot right here still in there we're about a year or two away from cars starting to drop that thing entirely auxilary brings you a number of interesting choices you've got Pandora I've got the app on here it locks out the phone screen and then puts it all there with good tagging a little slow to respond I fine bluetooth streaming was a little dicey to pair and I am almost never getting meta tags from at least my Droid 4 with Android 4.0 4 put a USB stick in or an iPod you get much better results in terms of how quickly things come up as well as the tag information reporting the phone interface is really big nice and clear and response is nice and quick as well my gripe with it is a lot of the options you want to use lock out when you're moving for example when I'm driving the phone book on the screen cannot be accessed by any of these control same thing goes for the dial pad all new Accords have text message support they'll read incoming messages to you when you're moving or let you reply with a canned response but no freeform text entry transmission on this car 6-speed manual bass up from a five-speed bass in the last year's model but we have what will be much more common the CVT not a true cog automatic but a continuously variable transmission now up front we've got a rather radically new engine for Honda this is a direct injection in line for the DI technology makes quite a difference and we'll see that on the road as well it's got the unfortunate name of Earth Dreams the hell does that mean direct injection 2.4 liter and the usual IV tech variable valve timing tech the numbers 185 horsepower on this car 181 foot-pounds of torque pretty good from what is a pretty big inline 4 zero to 16 about seven point six seconds that's a lot faster than the last Accord or down to six point eight if you get the manual the CVT is a little slower 33 36 is the kerb weight on this guy so it's a fairly substantial car but not portly and we're also looking at 27 36 as the mpg several better than the outgoing Accord on both counts okay now drive in the Accord the first thing I want to determine is that CVT that continuously variable transmission how variable is it this one does not suffer that issue to any significant degree it does tend to get caught up in high ratio which is the equivalent of seeking a top gear all the time but what car today doesn't so you've got to coax it out of its slumber to get some good response the sport mode down here helps that and then you're struck by how much really good power there is from this four-cylinder engine and four cylinders get a knock in larger cars like this but this one's got good power especially when you really get into it and realize wow there's a nice smooth powerful engine up there the handling is actually quite good on this car it's never gets into that feeling of tub enos or feeling as if it's starting to really yaw over one way or the other they've gone to arguably cheaper and simpler McPherson strut in the front end for this new generation but the ride quality and handling are good it's a it's a a non fatiguing car to drive which i think is one of the great attributes of a car in this category in general this new Accord is a nice place to sit while driving and it's got a more modern crisper feel to the inside now than the past Accords that were pretty generic inside okay let's price this 2013 Accord e^x seen that style which is a little tough because the e^x doesn't really go seen that style you can't option up much as I mentioned that said 25 4 is your base with delivery ad 800 bucks for a CVT which most buyers are going to get so we're at 26 - and that's about as far as you can go another 500 gets you back up bumper sensors but you've got a standard camera who cares now the key for the C net user is to go one notch higher to an e XL that unlocks navigation that unique second touchscreen and a variety of the advanced audio options but no matter what Accord you by Honda still remains a step behind the industry in terms of connected services like Google integration and true app support