Kia Ceed review

The Ceed has joined the floating touchscreen brigade, so that’s the first thing that greets you when you jump in. It’s got all the usual paraphernalia of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard, plus things like DAB, Bluetooth, cruise control, auto lights, heated door mirrors and a reversing camera. The facelifted Ceed has flush, touch-sensitive shortcut keys, which are a bit of a pain to use, and look smeary after your first few presses.

Kia is also majoring on safety kit in this Ceed as well, with tech like lane-keeping assist or driver-fatigue warning as standard. The self-steering aid is very intent on interfering a lot of the time: fortunately it can be told to go away with a long-press of a button under the driver's air vent. 

Does it feel well-built?

Definitely: very solid and consistent. While overall quality is fine (you get a leather steering wheel and the dash is fashioned from a huge slab of soft-touch material), you could argue the overall design is rather dated, dour and uninspiring.

However, we'll stop short of that because compared to fare like the awful cabins shared by the current VW Golf and Seat Leon, and the ambitious new Peugeot 308's cockpit, there's a certain refreshing sense of "aah, that's better" when settling into the brutally easy to understand 'KIN'. Sorry, Kia. 

And practical?

Space is generally good inside: four adults will comfortably fit, boot space is on a par, if not marginally better, than rivals (395 or 1,291 litres depending on how you arrange the seats), there are loads of cubbies up front – you get the picture.

It all adds up to a competent bit of kit.