Land Rover Discovery Sport 2017 review

A Land Rover Discovery Sport review? What’s new?

Land Rover’s massively successful Discovery Sport has had an update.

There’s some new ways to bling it up, with a new Graphite pack, and four shiny new colours: silver, grey, black and er, warm grey. But the real changes are inside, with new tech.

What’s new in there?

Lots. A huge 10.2in HD touchscreen acts like a smartphone, with swiping and pinching actions encouraged.

A sharp new graphic interface straight from the Jaguar F-Pace brings the Disco Sport right up to date, and combined with a solid state hard drive, it all works super quickly, making use of the extra-wide screen. The driver's display, in-between the dials, also gets a makeover, making it easier to get at the essential information.

In a world first there’s also a very clever Bluetooth tracking app, ‘Tile’. It works by you attaching tiny tags to anything you don’t want to forget. When you fire up the car, it’ll let you know what you’ve forgotten, and even where you’ve left the items. No more excuses for being late because you couldn’t find your keys/wallet/children...

There are more safety features than ever, including something called the Driver Condition monitor. If you show any signs of dropping off, there’ll be a series of visual and audible warnings. No slap round the face alert yet though. Shame.

Any good?

The main gripes with the launch car concerned its old, agricultural-style engine and a very last-gen infotainment system. Land Rover’s new system of an update a year means these are now both fixed. More economical than before and boasting a slick new infotainment system, the Disco will be even harder to ignore among its SUV peers.

But there probably should be another way of controlling the system, as swiping at arms length across that huge screen doesn’t seem like to safest thing to do when driving.

Accessing the heated seats is fiddly too. A tap of the central console button brings up the seat menu, where you have to tap the heat, then tap how hot you want it. Fiddly to say the least.

So not perfect?

I’m being picky. It’s a massive leap forward. The school run set has never had it so good.