Smart #3 review

The interior of the Smart #3 is decent to look at and sit in: there’s certainly nothing else on sale that’s similar. You get a smattering of cubbies and a nice little wireless charging slot in the front part of the centre console.

The real centrepiece is the 12.8in touchscreen that comes as standard, which will get most of your attention. It uses chips and processors from the world of gaming (it’s Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8155 chipset, apparently), with the home screen being full of information and slightly confusing graphics. They do look lovely though, so there’s that.

Is the touchscreen annoying?

Yup. It’s irritating trying to find what’s where in the various sub menus because there's nothing particularly intuitive about it. Try and adjust the wing mirrors, or turn off the overblown synthesised engine noise in the Brabus version, and you'll know what we're getting at.

Like with most other cars, you’ll end up just using Apple or Android connectivity and forgetting the native system, which means the giant screen just becomes wasted space. Oops.

Is it a good family car?

That's probably not the Smart's best fit. It's aiming to fill what it sees as a style gap in the market, rather than offer anything particularly clever or innovative.

That said, it’s easy enough to get comfortable up front, and there’s decent space in the rear. If you’re particularly tall you might find the sloping roof a bit annoying, but there’s a decent flat floor and the #3 comes with a panoramic glass sunroof as standard.

There’s no blind here, just the tinted glass, which helps with headroom. It wasn’t particularly warm when we drove the car, but hopefully direct sunlight doesn’t turn it into a mobile greenhouse.

How practical is it?

Those bits of cabin storage are useful, otherwise there’s a dinky little 15-litre frunk up front and 370 litres of space in the boot. That’s versus 411 litres that you get in the #1, though with the #3’s increased dimensions (it’s 170mm longer and 22mm wider) you don’t really feel like you’re missing out. 

Fold the seats and you’re looking at 1,160 litres of space. It’s about the same as the likes of the Volvo EC40, but less than you get in the Skoda Enyaq Coupe.