Look at CX-5 dashboard above. Now compare with my beloved 7 years old Civic FD2's below...
The CX-5 fails big time on the dashboard design, in particular, the head unit looks like a product of a decade ago. It does come with Tom-Tom navigation software, but heck, what is that piece of junk software on a pathetic 5" display compare to Waze with live traffic info on a full double-din display?
Adding salt to the wound, the head unit is so handicapped that it can't play mp3 from USB properly. I have thousands songs of my CD collection and the head unit never ever plays from the last played song, it starts from first song all over again whenever CX-5 is started. Did I mention that the Bluetooth A2DP is so laggy that the head unit needs a second or more to act upon the commands from the steering wheel control? What a humiliation and insult to Bose speakers pairing with such a head unit, the speakers just sound like a piece of flapping cardboard to produce some recognizable voice noises.
Well, Mazda did not fail entirely, at least. The head unit is not an integrated head unit like other continental cars. It can be easily replaced with a better aftermarket head unit, and here is my sharing on my makeover project on CX-5, with a teaser below...
The Pioneer SPH-DA210 AppRadio 3. The rest of this post will be focused on this unit, but I believe some likely relevant if you plan to install other head units especially the Pioneer's local set like AVH-X8650BT.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engine!