Touchscreen, this seems to be the catch-phrase of our times. Most of the time we are burdened with, or are dealing with, at least two tasks simultaneously, why shouldn't the monitor do the same. Windows-8 users have to grin and bear the fact that there are tablet-PC's with large buttons, even though their own PC's don't support the touchscreen function at all.

For the car drivers, the situation seems to be much better, of course their attention to the road is distracted for a moment and the lower the display is situated in the center console, the longer the distraction is. Indeed, this is actually the only serious disadvantage.

If the touchscreen is well made, I can recognize at a glance what's on the display and can quickly select my destination using buttons which are large enough to be useful. Whether the slider function found in todays modern smartphones can assert itself here, remains to be seen.

Oddly enough, this component which has been which has been conceived especially for the automobile, is also cheaper and the cockpit can be tidily designed. Only the most important functions are consigned to external switches.

Indeed, the touchscreen can bring almost all the functions of your home-PC into the car, which, from the aspect of distraction, is not particularly desirable. Since then, one can send not only the route from the PC to the car but also emails or even more complex information from the car to the PC.

The touchscreen competes with the selection wheel which has, in the meantime, taken the place of the gear-shift. After initial complaints (from the users), it has asserted itself quite well and now actually requires less distraction from what's happening on the road. 06/12

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