Sie looks pretty chic, is the first impression. We take a seat in the new Citroën C4, which now wants to distinguish itself as an originally drawn crossover. We want to explore the infotainment and the eye immediately lands on the large 10-inch monitor in the center of the dashboard. It is part of the standard equipment, you only have to do without it in the smallest model variant “Live”. What is initially astonishing turns out to be a tricky construction on closer inspection: the display has very wide black borders, and since the selected temperature and the settings for the air conditioning are always prominently displayed on the left and right, the area for content is reduced to the middle.
Even more disappointing is the digital instrument cluster in front of the steering wheel. What is shown here in a bleak representation is downright puny. Instead of drawing beautiful graphics for the speedometer, tachometer and more, the designers listlessly laced together a minimalist representation that is neither attractive nor functional.
So back to the touchscreen and the operation of the infotainment: If you can use physical buttons below the middle air vents to adjust the air conditioning, the touch-sensitive display and your fingers are used for almost everything else. In addition to steering wheel buttons, there is also a rotary control on the passenger side for adjusting the volume, which is not illuminated when it is dark.
What you do with a few taps of your finger is almost self-explanatory, large buttons guide the respective menus. The flexibility of entering the destination is a positive feature of the navigation system. Usually, you only have to type a few letters on the virtual keyboard to get the first suggestions straight away. This works not only with city and street, but also when searching for points of interest. After starting the route, the expert immediately recognizes that proven technology from Tomtom leads to the goal.
Love of luxury: The large monitor looks great at first glance.
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Image: Citroen
The display is clear and precise, and on the right edge of the screen there is the Tomtom-typical visualization of traffic disruptions. You can see immediately at what distance a traffic jam leads to what delay time. The traffic data comes in real time with the built-in SIM card in the vehicle, which is unusual in this price range. With the exception of the two cheapest model variants Live and Feel, the navigation system is part of the standard equipment.
The voice control also has a finesse that you won’t find in a vehicle that costs 20,000 euros in the cheapest version: It’s the online connection with Dragon Drive. What was not immediately understood in the car is searched for on the servers of the Nuance spin-off Cerence, in this way the recognition gains in quality. However, all of this only works if there is mobile phone coverage and the confirmation requested by the driver is often not recognized.
There are no surprises in the other departments, good basic functionality for telephony, media playback and personalization determines the picture. The fact that you can choose “themes” for the display is a nice extra, we would have liked such loving details for the digital cockpit. A small head-up display with a plexiglass pane is part of the standard equipment from the model variant “Feel Pack”, but does not show navigation instructions as detailed as with the competition.