The Mk8 VW GTI isn't as good as its predecessor. | Revelations with Jason Cammisa | Ep. 11
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it in threads on touchscreens versus physical buttons in cars, as an example of an enthusiast's critique of VW's UX.
What it is
Jason Cammisa reviews the 2022 Volkswagen Mk8 GTI and explains why he thinks it is worse than the Mk7. He criticizes aspects such as the capacitive touch controls and the interface.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2021 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends deckard1 · 2023-12 · on “VW Is Putting Buttons Back in Cars Because People Complained Enough”
Here's a good video from Jason Cammisa about the new (at the time) mk8: [this video] I had a mk7 and it is the best interior + UX I've seen in a car. Everything is as simple and ergonomic as possible. The volume adjustment is a knob, with soft rubber knurling and indents for feedback. It's not some awful feeling smooth afterthought that you see on certain Toyotas or Hondas. It's not a push button (beep beep beep beep) you find on old Pioneer stereos from the '90s. It's exactly what you want to adjust the volume. The AC is similar. Heated seats are a button with 3 LEDs indicating high/med/low. Everything just makes sense. And then VW got cheap and greedy. The mk8 is almost the complete opposite of
Cites 29083011397778 · 2021-09 · on “Our fridge just emailed us to say we opened its door too many times”
> my father-in-law's Mazda... the touch screen doesn't work while driving Sounds like it's an older model, and I can tell you from personal experience Mazda, at least, has learned from their mistakes (regarding touchscreens). I know the 2020 models, and I believe much earlier, have all gone back to physical, tactile buttons. Real buttons, not Volkswagon's stupid, stupid capacitive buttons. Watching Jason Camisa dunk on VW's UX was an exercise in vindication for having avoided that horseshit [0]. They are clicky, settings are remembered, and it does what you tell it to do. Frankly, that's all it took for me to insist our new car be a Mazda. And while I apologize for the rant, finding a new ca
Cites DavidPeiffer · 2021-11 · on “Some new BMWs won't have touchscreens thanks to chip shortage”
Unfortunately I think it's more driven by cost motivations. As noted in the Mk8 VW GTI review [1], the interfaces are often straight up awful, this being a particularly bad design. They're the biggest source of complaints/issues shortly after buying, and three years later. Additionally, distractions are already abundant in a vehicle. A crappy user interface, which most are, is a safety concern. At minimum, lag between screens loading should be extremely minimal. Staring at a screen for an extra second or two while it registers that you pressed a button and updates the screen is incredibly dangerous and has surely lead to some number of deaths. Two years ago Mazda announced they were moving a
Critical dharmab · 2023-12 · on “Volkswagen Admits Failure, Will Bring Back Physical Buttons”
The bizzare thing is that the soft buttons had hardcoded symbols on them! [this video] It was objectively worse than physical buttons, without any advantage at all!