2014 Chevy Impala review: Chevy nails infotainment with updated MyLink

Chevrolet this month resurrected the riches-to-rags Chevrolet Impala with a dazzling iteration of the My Link infotainment system and an adaptive cruise control system that sets new bang-for-the-buck standards. Owing to GM’s weak finances the past few years, Chevrolet was forced to build a less complex, more approachable music, navigation and phone interface. MyLink’s first cousin, Cadillac CUE, with its sexy infrared proximity sensor and capacitive touch controls, may be less approachable despite more technical wizardry and R&D spending. MyLink may be more usable than Ford’s Sync.

To use MyLink, you press one of the physical buttons just below the display (Radio, Media, or Home), or tap the screen. With CUE, the menu display comes up when your hand approaches the display, which is cool if you intended it, annoying it your hand was just passing by en route to adjusting the air vent or open the glove box, annoying because about a third of the navigation screen is hidden until the prompts fade away.

Once the screen is tapped, three icons (typically) appear at the top of the display: navigation, audio, and phone. Through setup, you promote other icons to be always at the top. Want Pandora always visible? Or the visual weather forecast? Click and drag it into place (click here means holding your finger against the icon for a second until it animates). Those top icons are your favorite applications.
Your favorite presets appear at the bottom of the screen, five at a time, and you access additional sets of five by swiping (see, more smartphone-type gestures). The presets, 60 in all, can be a mix of favorite radio stations, navigation destinations, artists, genres, or music playlists.


MyLink’s customizable display and numerous inputs

You can choose among four skins for the interface. The Radio hard button (that is, a real button you press in) just below the LCD cycles among AM, FM and satellite radio. The adjacent Media button cycles among CDs, devices connected to the car’s three (yes, three) USB jacks, an SD card reader, and a Library setting that rolls up all your media choices into one in case you forget if your Green Day tribute playlist was on the iPod, the Galaxy phone, or the SD card. There is no hard button to take you directly to navigation.
This version of MyLink includes improved voice recognition with fewer constraints on how you frame a command. In comparison to a Cadillac XTS with the previous version of the core recognizer, I found that the the new MyLink did a better job understanding what I wanted. It’s not fully natural language and it’s parsed by the car, not by a server in the cloud, so Siri still has the advantage overall. Both are built around Nuance software though.

Navigation has 3D mapping that shows building outlines in urban areas. Bluetooth allows for up to ten devices to be remembered. If you have movies loaded on a USB device, you can play them — when the car is in park.

The main display is fairly bright, 650 nits of brightness compared to about 400 for an iPad (but 1,000 nits for a high-end Cadillac). Still, 650 nits can only do so much when bright sunlight hits the center stack LCD; it washes out and is unreadable. That’s why some high-end automakers employ costlier transflective displays that are lit by reflective light by day, backlighting by night. AMOLED displays may be the choice in the future.

There is a USB jack in a hidden bin behind the LCD display, with two more jacks and an SD slot in the center console. GM says the USB jacks supply 10W, enough to charge a tablet, not just a phone.

The MyLink radio interface is simple enough for even a digital neophyte. Menus are clear, with big virtual buttons and large fonts. Working through basic functions is easy, and selectable layout options further simplify things. More tech-savvy users can dig deeper, where they'll find more complicated pages. Those pages let you use swiping motions to move through lists or cycle through presets, but they require just the right touch, which can be hard and distracting while driving. Onboard computer functions can be changed through the steering wheel.

Pairing a phone via Bluetooth is quick and easy. Voice commands, which work very well, can be used to place calls, enter destinations, and control a mobile device connected through a USB cable. An integrated Pandora app provides an easy and familiar interface; using the app with an iPhone requires tethering with a USB cord.

This new Chevy outscores luxury sedans costing $20,000 more, including the Acura RLX and the Jaguar XF.