Better than touchscreen, though, especially when moving (only doing it as a passenger, of course!)

Having used both, I vastly prefer the touchscreen. The rotary input takes way longer to navigate to the next letter, and it's easier to make mistakes (e.g. accidentally switching modes) and it's harder to fix them (need to cycle all the way to the end to hit backspace, sometimes having to start from scratch if your mistake was "jump out of input mode")

I've tried Android Auto in a Sonata with touch screen, and Passat and a Q5 with rotary controller. The latter were far easier to use, once you've spent 5 minutes making sure you understand how it works.

Maybe if the touch screen were Tesla-sized it would have been easier to use, but on a regular sized screen, even switching modes takes much more attention with a touch screen, because you need to look at it, move your hand to it, make sure you're hitting the correct location, wait until it registers,m make sure you've actually hit the right spot. With a rotary it was "slide down, no need to look because it clicks, click or two clockwise (still no need to look), push down, quick glance that you're on the right screen, click clock- or counterclock-wise to select what you need. Much safer and easier, and you're not going to hit a wrong thing because you drove over a bump.

For entering addresses a large touch screen is nicer, but then a keyboard is even better, but since you're only supposed to do that while parked, so hitting a wrong button shouldn't be a big problem.

I've tried Android Auto in a Sonata with touch screen, and Passat and a Q5 with rotary controller. The latter were far easier to use, once you've spent 5 minutes making sure you understand how it works.

Maybe if the touch screen were Tesla-sized it would have been easier to use, but on a regular sized screen, even switching modes takes much more attention with a touch screen, because you need to look at it, move your hand to it, make sure you're hitting the correct location, wait until it registers,m make sure you've actually hit the right spot. With a rotary it was "slide down, no need to look because it clicks, click or two clockwise (still no need to look), push down, q

You must have used some really terrible touchscreen GPSes.

Pretty much top of the line.

There's a big difference between what is safe and convenient when you are sitting at your desk, lazily poking at the screen, and what is acceptable when you are barrelling down the highway, with the screen you need to stretch your arm to reach.

Interacting w/ a car touchscreen when you're on the highway isn't the brightest of ideas... Every car - even those w/ touchscreen - has physical buttons for top level commands (e.g. play the radio) that one could use via muscle memory or, at worst, a quick glance. Doing anything more involved that requires attention _while the car is in motion_ is just asking for trouble.

Exactly the point. But on some cars pretty much everything requires you to interact with a touch screen (cough, Tesdla, cough), and even if it does not, there's usually not enough buttons.

On my wife's Sonata, e.g., sure, you can switch the screen between map, nav. entry, radio, etc. with physical buttons. But after that it's all touch screen.Thank God they at least left alone knobs for the climate control...

Sat in the eTron lately while waiting for service. Two Nice, bright screens with haptic feedback. Very much fun, as long as I was playing with it on a showroom floor. But I shudder to think of actually trying to use on the road.