Is the large portrait screen worth it in a platinum trim?

[blwnsmoke]

Small Screen is better in every way except for when using built in navigation. I’ve got a 2020 Platinum with tech Package and I’m annoyed by the screen’s lack of functions, but I had to have the massage seats.

The small screen has a better implementation of backup cam + 360 cam, but it’s still not as good as it should be. There’s no individual camera control for parking, and you can’t use it while you’re over ~3mph. It’d be helpful for pulling up next to a curb to have a viewer bigger than 1 square inch.

The worst part of the large screen (besides people asking me seriously if I put a personal tablet on the dash) is the Apple CarPlay implementation. It’s a tiny section of the screen that’s much smaller than the standard screen’s CarPlay. SYNC has great phone/Siri implementation elsewhere so this is a head scratcher.

If Ford updated SYNC to address just one of these aspects it’d be a huge improvement. As of now there’s no practical advantage to the portrait screen, especially considering it’s nearly impossible to enter an address on the native nav.

Use voice control for nav. Pretty easy and works very well.

 

[Viper Driver]

Small Screen is better in every way except for when using built in navigation. I’ve got a 2020 Platinum with tech Package and I’m annoyed by the screen’s lack of functions, but I had to have the massage seats.

The small screen has a better implementation of backup cam + 360 cam, but it’s still not as good as it should be. There’s no individual camera control for parking, and you can’t use it while you’re over ~3mph. It’d be helpful for pulling up next to a curb to have a viewer bigger than 1 square inch.

The worst part of the large screen (besides people asking me seriously if I put a personal tablet on the dash) is the Apple CarPlay implementation. It’s a tiny section of the screen that’s much smaller than the standard screen’s CarPlay. SYNC has great phone/Siri implementation elsewhere so this is a head scratcher.

If Ford updated SYNC to address just one of these aspects it’d be a huge improvement. As of now there’s no practical advantage to the portrait screen, especially considering it’s nearly impossible to enter an address on the native nav.

Great review geronimo! I think this is what the thread starter was looking for.
Yes - across all platforms it seems like screen real estate can't quite be figured out in terms of efficient use and/or it gets pirated. Case in point. We now have massive sized televisions but after they pirate or waste a bunch of the perimeter space, I feel sometimes like I'm back to watching the game/race/etc on an old 27" tube machine.
I would suggest the engineers and legal teams get rid of the lock out features like you mentioned and simply either have the user acknowledge some waiver that comes up on the screen when the system powers up that waives all liability by bypassing the lockouts or at least disabling the lock out feature when there is a person occupying the passenger seat. It already has a squat switch to determine occupancy for the air bag, so that should be easy to implement. It's frustrating as it's usually me and my wife in the vehicle and she has always acted as our navigator; the system pretty much locks her out too and forces me to use the voice system, which I would add, IMO is not all that good. We've taken short trips where we know where we're heading and over the course of an hour or so drive, never get the system to find and navigate to the correct location. We have used the Ford+Alexa app and it seems to be better at finding and getting the nav solution set up, but getting the Alexa app set up initially is less than straight forward. I think much of that is the result of Ford designing a substandard search algorithm. You darn near have to say the exact POI name as it is listed in the internal vehicle database; otherwise, you get either nothing, or more likely, POI's that don't even come close in spelling or phonetics nor are they in the search area specified. I'll ask for something in Columbus Ohio and get shown search results that are located all over the U.S. Why? Am I suddenly going to change my mind about eating a burger in Ohio and drive to the west coast? Long way to go with improvement there. And while the personal assistant programmers are at it, we consumers don't want to learn a new language for each manufacturer; we'd all like to just speak our native language the way we do every day and have the system understand. We have Amazon Echo, Google Home, Siri, Cortana, Sync, just to name a few and each has it's own language. I've used some aircraft voice recognition systems that are scary they're so good, but must admit I have no idea how much they cost to develop/implement. With machine learning and AI implementation, this will all get better very quickly, but my overall problem with Ford is they seem to consistently stay well behind the power curve with there technology/infotainment systems. We live in an "I want it yesterday" society and I do

Thanks again geronimo for the great review and comments.

 

[peterk9]

Since my Aviator has the same sized display but in a horizontal configuration, I wonder why they chose to place it vertically in the Explorer?

Peter

 

[EastMark]

And it looks really great in the Aviator......but so does the entire finish of the dash.

Id hope they change the ST to horizontal
for 2021.

 

[Forddealz]

And it looks really great in the Aviator......but so does the entire finish of the dash.

Id hope they change the ST to horizontal
for 2021.

The ST already comes with an 8 inch horizontal screen. Unless you need a much wider screen, Aviator screen is a little wider and larger.

 

[UofMEngineer]

We've taken short trips where we know where we're heading and over the course of an hour or so drive, never get the system to find and navigate to the correct location. We have used the Ford+Alexa app and it seems to be better at finding and getting the nav solution set up, but getting the Alexa app set up initially is less than straight forward. I think much of that is the result of Ford designing a substandard search algorithm. You darn near have to say the exact POI name as it is listed in the internal vehicle database; otherwise, you get either nothing, or more likely, POI's that don't even come close in spelling or phonetics nor are they in the search area specified. I'll ask for something in Columbus Ohio and get shown search results that are located all over the U.S. Why? Am I suddenly going to change my mind about eating a burger in Ohio and drive to the west coast? Long way to go with improvement there.

Shoot me some examples of exactly what you're saying, and the POI names, I may be able to help. The item where results can show up across the country is the nav search engine. Some POIs get promoted so even if they're outside the area, they'll still show in the list. Searching for "Spartan Stadium" in East Lansing will show one in San Jose as well as an example. I think that's the type of thing you're referring to? I'm not a fan of that either personally as it can add needless steps to the process. Also, check out this to make sure you're giving it what it's expecting, else it's a garbage in garbage out situation.

 

[Viper Driver]

Shoot me some examples of exactly what you're saying, and the POI names, I may be able to help. The item where results can show up across the country is the nav search engine. Some POIs get promoted so even if they're outside the area, they'll still show in the list. Searching for "Spartan Stadium" in East Lansing will show one in San Jose as well as an example. I think that's the type of thing you're referring to? I'm not a fan of that either personally as it can add needless steps to the process. Also, check out this to make sure you're giving it what it's expecting, else it's a garbage in garbage out situation.

I'll reply in the other thread you started...