I've had a 950 since November. I like it and the button layout has been pretty much the same for all brands for decades. The move from physical navigation buttons to virtual ones (Android 2012, Windows Phone 2014) means compacter phones, but you also have to "discover" how to call them up, although you find them pretty much by accident usually, the first time they are hidden. But I still prefer physical buttons in some ways.

BTW have you tried Hello? I tried it, but it doesn't like glasses, so it rarely works for me, unless I flip up my glasses... Other than that, I like the 950 very much.

Hmm, the 950 I have has a physical camera button as well. You could label them with Brail, that would give people a reason to learn it, before it is too late and their eyes are ruined by squinting at smartphone displays all day long.

For most of the big named German cars, it is in the center console, in front of the arm rest, so can be easily reached, why doesn't that work with RHD? (Genuinely curious) It seems to be a design that should work from either side. Having a jog wheel on the left of the display, like the first generation, non-touch displays from the mid-2000s, I could understand (I went had a 2004 Mondeo with touchscreen, which worked well, a friend had a 2006 VW Sharan, which just hat buttons and dials, no touch), but the mix of touch screen and a jog wheel in the middle console seems fairly logical to me...

I suspect it's to do with being lefthanded or righthanded. Most people are right handed so in a LHD car, they are using their most dextrous hand to use controls. It's easier. In a RHD car, people are using their least dextrous hand to use the controls and it can be much harder.

And I'm left handed and drive a LHD car, not found any problems - and we have been driving RHD for decades in the UK and all of the controls for radio, heating and other ancilliaries have always been on the left...

Not tried Hello. I wear glasses and am quite happy with a pin code.
I very much like the 950XL as well. it's only marginally wider than my old Samsung ATIV S when it was in the case I used so it doesn't feel that much physically bigger but the screen is much better and it's sooo much faster as well.
Did you snaffle all the freebies they were giving away? I got the display/continuum dock thing and years free Office 365 which is about £140 of free/included stuff.

Back on topic though, not really driven cars with too complicated infotainment things on them other than very briefly as pool cars at work. My main gripe is usually having to play hunt the parking break now the trend seems to be moving away from having a physical handbreak. Had a Toyota Avensis last week and they've hidden the parking break on the dashboard behind the steering wheel

They didn't offer the dock on the 950, only the XL, but that was too big for my needs.

Ditto, the 950XL is over the top. IMO.

Also - USB C charging? whatever happened to the 'all phones must charge via MicroUSB' EU ruling? Or did they just give up when Apple ignored them?

Lol, good point.

I guess you could argue that USB-C is where things are heading and it's the successor to micro USB anyway.
Also, didn't Apple get round the micro USB thing by offering an optional adapter (for a bonkers price like all their other adapters)?

AFAIK, as davrosG5 says, USB-C will be the successor to micro-USB.

I must confess I like the USB-C connector. Full of fast charge goodness. It's a bit bigger than the Apple lightning connector but it also seems to be lot more robust. Time will tell I guess.

Exactly

The hand controls for driving a car require only gross motor skills and and such can be carried out with either hand. Handedness only really becomes an issue once fine motor skills are required.

In a LHD car, the hand required to interact with the intricate controls is the one most likely to be used to carrying out tasks requiring fine motor skills - the right hand. This is because the vast majority of drivers are right-handed.

In a RHD car, the opposite is true. The hand required to interact is the one least likely to be used to carrying out tasks requiring fine motor skills - the left hand. This dramatically increases the amount of attention required for ant interactive task. Moreover, as left-handers usually have to survive in a predominantly right-handed world, they are likely to have some trained dexterity in their weaker hand. The same is not true of right-handers who, dwelling in a right-handed world, may never have developed much dexterity in their left hand.

Another problem is with rotary menu navigation. In my boss' Audi A8, the jogwheel is backwards - anti-clockwise to go down the menu, clockwise to go up. It took us ages to figure out why. Then I sat in the passenger seat and fiddled with the jogwheel. Instantly, it made total sense to have clockwise go up. When I switched back to the driver's side, it was a nightmare again. There's even a little trackpad thingy you can use with handwriting recognition - using the hand that for most people has literally never written a damned thing.

Then there's the problem of volume knobs. In a RHD car, I need the volume knob to be either in the middle or, preferably, on the RHS. Go on Amazon and try to find a decent car stereo with the volume knob on the right. I can't find one - can you? In order to change source, I have to reach past the usb stick and the aux cable (hopefully not knocking them) and try to press the button I can't see that's hidden on the wrong side of the volume knob I can barely reach.

Meanwhile what buttons are there for my right hand to deal with? The windows. That I never use. Because I have aircon.

*Rage*

I completely agree.

I'd much prefer to have the controls to my right hand side. Even if there was some sort of navigation device in the door handle area. That would make more sense than anything in the centre console (of a RHD car).


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Controls in LHD cars are always changed in a minimal way when for the RHD market. My car, for example, has no real change in the location of certain buttons and other "features" that the LHD has, and they make more sense for that configuration. For example, the coin tray is on the driver's side, and the cigar lighter (yes, that's what it's called - but it has a USB socket in it now) is on the passenger side. The shaping on the console where the hand brake is favours LHD use too. Not by too much, but by enough. You'll probably find that the windscreen het blowers favours the left side of the windscreen more than the right.

Thankfully, there is no touch control for my car, and I like it that it doesn't. It seems to be a layer of complexity added to my wife's car, and frankly it would be better without it.

However, consider the Skoda Octavia that my dad had. No, not the modern model, but the one he bought in the 1960s. It really was a LHD car. The steering wheel was on the right, as were the pedals. That was all the "right handedness" it had. The gear stick was in between the front sets. But guess where the hand brake was.

Between the passenger seat and the passenger door. So, to do a hill start, he's have to lean across the width of the car. He said it made driving "interesting".