Interior and tech
Inside, the X4 looks an awful lot like ever other modern BMW. That’s no bad thing, it looks clean and fresh. The dashboard is predominantly made up of two plain, easy to read dials. Although systems like Audi’s virtual cockpit are very useful, the X4’s analogue dials are welcome relief from the flashy screens present in so many premium German cars.
As is typical for a modern BMW there’s a huge range of movement in the seat and steering column for you to find the ideal driving position. The usual criticism that applies to a lot of new cars, that you simply can’t sit low enough, doesn’t apply to the SUV X4. In fact, at its absolute lowest, the seat feels too low.
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As well as being able to move the seat into a satisfying position, they’re also very heavily padded and are exceptionally comfortable.
The leather on the seats has a very coarse grain that’s matched on the plastic and rubber mouldings on the dash and elsewhere in the interior. If BMW's intention was that this texture would give the X4 a more rugged feel, we’re afraid it’s missed the mark. In reality it makes the leather look false and cheapens the interior slightly.
The car’s infotainment is dealt with via BMW’s much-copied iDrive system. The X4 gets the latest generation where some of the previously easy to access functions have been moved to difficult to find areas. Changing the height or angle of the head-up display isn’t easy to do and neither is turning off the safety systems like the lane departure warning. But, the menus that control such aspects do only need to be accessed once, so the convoluted path to change them isn’t a huge issue.
