Gadgetory

in the past few years Nissan's product offerings have seemed a little confused they lack the clear vision that I see from companies like Hyundai or Audi but it also benefits from Nissan's best technology a continuously variable transmission let's get in the 2014 Nissan Altima and check the tech and here in the cabin is what I was talking about the continuously variable transmission this is Nissan's kind of secret weapon for getting great fuel economy instead of having fixed gears has a system of pulleys and bands that will constantly match engine speed with the car speed and accelerator load some of them aren't so good from other automakers but Nissan's really as the best in the business this one really feels engaged when you're driving and when I pull it into reverse I get my rear view camera here and it's got trajectory lines so I can turn the wheel and I can see which way I'll be backing that's really helpful now this is a 7 inch touch screen here this is part of the infotainment unit you know Nissan hasn't really had a very consistent vision as far as technology goes and this really kind of looks like I was an off-the-shelf unit from a supplier but it's not bad and it's got decent functions legal things navigation phone digital audio the maps look pretty good here they actually show in perspective and plan view right now I'm looking in plan view and if I pull out a bit I can see the some traffic information too so I can see some live traffic and the nice thing about this traffic information is it's not just showing on the freeways so I see some free flow on the freeway nearby here but it's also showing on the surface streets in downtown San Francisco so I've got some red markers here telling me these roads are pretty congested right now so I can avoid them just by looking at this and steering you know away from that there's no real home screen with this system there's just a series of plastic buttons on the side here that could be the navigation the map the different audio sources and telephones over here for some reason also there's a button called apps we'll check that out in a minute if I hit this navigation button I get my destination options here so I've got street address points of interest one thing I'm not really crazy about this system here is that sometimes you don't really you have to hit those button really precisely in the middle it doesn't really react that well and can be frustrating if you're driving along and trying to hit something and it keeps on not quite getting it right I wish they kind of expand the touch area of these buttons now along with these destination options the Altima has also got some connected features which is pretty nice it's got Google online search to get that I actually have to have the nissanconnect app installed on my phone which which I do there's also a version for Android with the iPhone I have to have a cable up here with the Android you can probably do that with just bluetooths I've got three functions right now these I can probably add some more in the future but right now it's got I Heart Radio also got some Facebook integration and I've got Google online search so really that Google online search should be part of this navigation interface but it's not really well integrated so I have to go to this apps button I pushed that I get some serious traffic stories travel link which has fuel prices movie time stuff like that then I press the my apps button and I get the another button for online search now I can go in there it's a lot of button presses by the way and it takes a little while to come up because it's got to make a connection through your phone to the Internet now I get these options for just a free-form search voice search which will try that out right now CNET just a key word just an easy keyword now it's searching and actually found it right away it found it pretty quick and I can just say start navigation and here I go so that that's really convenient to have but again not great integration that I have to go through all those button presses and also push the microphone button on the screen here as opposed to the voice command button embedded in the car there's actually a button here for more native voice command functions for the car it also lets me ask for music play artists new order now because I have my iPhone hooked up to the car here if I do USB Drive it should work the same I can just say an artist named play that artist it comes up right away so in this iPod screen here I've actually got of course menu options to choose artists albums on the screen here you know or like I said a voice command I've got other audio sources here I've got satellite radio of course I've got FM AM I don't have HD radio in this car just regular FM AM I still got a CD player and this is kind of silly they just have an aux button and this will actually cycle through the different digital options I've got here so it gives through iPod Bluetooth audio and an aux input as well all this music plays through in this car a Bose audio system it's a nine speaker system we've got a center channel up here but no subwoofer and that's kind of a shame a subwoofer would have added some more more depth and richness to the music I find the system produces a pretty distinct sound I can hear all the instruments and vocals with a good amount of clarity but I have noticed a little bit of fuzz in the mid range depending on the very edge it's a little disturbing and the bass isn't particularly strong again subwoofer would have been nice on this center screen here in the instrument cluster I can also go through a lot of my information sources audio sources I can of course see fuel economy but I can also see phone navigation and all that good kind of step now the Altimas engine here is is kind of boring it's a 2.5 litre four-cylinder aluminium block and and this one doesn't even use direct injection like a lot of the other automakers have this just has port injection and makes hundred 80 horsepower 182 pound-feet of torque those are actually pretty good numbers and pretty comparable to the other direct injection cars Nissan gets those kinds of numbers because of their variable valve timing they're they're pretty good at that kind of stuff so this is actually ends up being a pretty efficient engine actually even without some of the modern technologies like direct injection fuel economy numbers for the Optima 27 miles per gallon city 38 miles per gallon highway now those are really high and that's mostly due to the continuously variable transmission and if I'm just cruising along here at 25 then I slammed the accelerator it picks up pretty fast and it really just is a very smooth linear acceleration that's the beauty of the CVT it does it just a really fine job in most circumstances there's about any driving circumstances of matching the engine speed and the vehicle speed and what the driver wants the suspension tuning is kind of funky I found with the Nissan Sentra too that the dampers are tuned pretty soft and so you feel a bit of sway in the corners but to help the handling out they've also got this thing called an active understeer control this is basically what's called corner braking it applies a little bit of brakes to the inside front wheel and that helps the car come around the corner a little bit sharper it's a nice feature to have and it's such a new that they put it in this midsize sedan I always feel like Nissan's got different engineers kind of different working on different things the suspension guys wanted a softer ride so they stop those dampers but then the handling guys put in that that corner control at corner braking to to make it a little more of a sporty car it's it's a weird mix base price for 2014 Nissan Altima is twenty two thousand one hundred and ten dollars this SL trim is twenty seven thousand eight hundred and sixty well that gets a lot of nice convenience features USB port all that good stuff the navigation system comes in as part of a technology package that's $1,090 that also includes some of those driver assistance features like lane departure warning and blind spot monitoring Nissan also forces you to take the moonroof option with the technology package there's no good reason why they do that but that puts the total price of this 2014 Nissan Altima with destination up at thirty thousand two hundred sixty dollars there are a lot of good options in the midsize sedan segment and the Nissan Altima doesn't really measure up price by price compared to some of the other ones from Ford or Chevy or even Toyota it's got some good features here but it's not all really consistent and so I really liked the offerings from some of the other manufacturers better