New BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Hands on with the most connected BMW yet

The 5 Series is a hugely important car for BMW. Although it’s not usually the largest or most technically advanced car the German maker has to offer, it’s the one most synonymous with the brand, representing 17% of global sales. The sixth generation of the BMW 5 Series was one of the most popular yet, outselling its nearest competitors from Audi and Jaguar, but matching Mercedes-Benz.

But the landscape has changed significantly since then, with the new Mercedes E Class and updated Audi A4 emerging, including everything from semi-autonomous driving to connected car technology. In response, BMW has unveiled the seventh-generation BMW 5 Series, and huge amount of tech onboard, it’s currently the most advanced BMW you can buy today. But is it any good? We went for a drive around Malaga in Spain to find out.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Design

From the outside, at least, the new BMW 5 Series is a clear improvement over its predecessor. Car manufacturers seem to make their cars bigger and tamer with every update, and the previous 5 Series exemplified that trend perfectly. With rounded headlights and chunky, curved corners, it wasn’t exactly the sharpest-looking car, and seemed to play safe where other cars such as the Jaguar XF and Audi A4 and A5 made a statement.

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Thankfully, the new 5 Series is anything but boring. BMW has given it a complete redesign that makes the car look edgier and more dynamic. Almost every area of the car looks sharper and slicker, but it’s the car’s famous “kidney” grilles that represent the most obvious area of change.

They’re wider than before and actually join with the car’s sharper, LED headlights. Just like the 7 Series, the new 5 Series’ grille employs the firm’s “Active Air Stream” tech, so it will remain closed when the engine needs to warm up, and opens only when cooling is required, making the car more efficient.

The rest of the car has stronger lines than last year’s model and, although the rear is relatively unchanged, the new 5 Series seems more athletic, even in the non-M-Sport configuration. Nevertheless, this is still a BMW, and has all the styling cues you’d expect, right down to the air-breather and iconic Hofmeister kink (the bold flick behind the rear passenger-door windows) in the c-pillar. BMW says the new series has lost 100kg of weight, though (around the weight of one 6’3” motoring journalist), and the sportier design seems to echo that fact.

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BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Interior

Inside, the BMW 5 Series is a little different to its competitors. Unlike the Audi A4 or the Mercedes-Benz E Class, the 5 Series’ low-slung cockpit feels driver-orientated the moment you step in. The interior is dominated by a huge, 10.25in touchscreen, beneath which you’ll find air-conditioning vents, music controls and a surprisingly large area devoted to the car’s air-conditioning controls, complete with their very own screen.

The 5 Series uses BMW’s iDrive knob to give you control over the car’s menus and systems, but you can also use the touchscreen or even motion control, something I’ll get to later on.

The rest of the interior is pretty much what you’d expect from a premium saloon car. In the, £45,000 530d xDrive model I drove, the interior was dominated by glossy black plastic, highly polished wood and swathes of matte aluminium. As with the new Mercedes E Class, the 5 Series also includes ambient lighting, so you can alter the colour interior downlighting to suit your mood. I had mine set to cool blue, in case you were wondering.

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BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Infotainment

Before you even you turn on the ignition, you’ll notice the BMW 5 Series’ huge central display. Measuring a massive 10.25in across the diagonal, it’s one of the biggest screens I’ve seen on any modern car, and I found it easy to read in both bright and overcast conditions. It’s also extremely easy to use, and that’s due to several design decisions.

BMW has moved to a tile-based setup for much of its UI. A redesigned homescreen consists of different squares showing information such as navigation or media, and you can expand each one to see more information. The interface lends itself well to touchscreen use – those big buttons are very easy to find, whether you’re sitting in traffic or driving – but critically it remains as effective and easy to use with car’s “manual” iDrive controls.

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And that’s the second reason the system is so simple to operate. iDrive’s large rotary dial is both precise and intuitive to use and, when coupled with the handful of shortcut buttons surrounding its base, it makes navigating around the 5 Series’ in-car systems a breeze. There’s also a touchpad with character recognition built into the surface of the rotary dial, and because it has great palm reduction, you won’t set it off when you’re not using it.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Performance

This is all backed up by an extremely responsive system. The new 5 Series’ infotainment system is powered by a 1.5GHz processor along with 2GB of RAM, meaning it’s more comparable to an iPad than a normal car satnav system. Certainly, it could handle everything I threw at it and remained responsive in BMW’s handy split-screen mode.

What I’m missing out here is gesture control, because it’s a feature the 5 Series could do without. Simply put, gesture control picks up selected hand movements and then translates them into commands. For example, using a hand to swipe left or right was supposed to move the tiles on the homescreen, but I never got that gesture to work. When I tried it on the larger 7 Series, I found it slightly gimmicky and hard to get the hang of, and my opinion doesn’t change here.

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The volume gesture did work, but rotating my finger in mid-air as instructed felt odd, and the fact it worked only 75% of the time made things worse. Even more irritatingly ,it would frequently recognise unintentional hand movements as commands changing the volume without warning. The only good thing about it? It’s easy to turn off.

In addition to the HUGE touchscreen, the BMW also has a 12.3in dashboard display behind the wheel – although the look is slightly more traditional than Audi’s super-techy Virtual Cockpit. Instead, BMW’s electronic cockpit blends the old and the new, using silver highlights to outline a more traditional-looking dial layout.

The system is subtle, but useful: you can see the speed limit of the road you’re on, and the buttons on the steering wheel can convert the rev counter into a small menu, via which you can check navigation, change music tracks, check crucial vehicle information and even browse contacts.

Depending on the mode you’re in, the dials change colour and style. For example, with the car in Sport mode, the dials accentuate the speed and revs, and glow in an aggressive red hue. Although the system was in good in practice, I found it slightly limited when compared with Audi’s Virtual Cockpit system. Although it was completely electronic, BMW’s insistence of basing its system of traditional dials means the 5 Series’ cockpit screen can’t adapt or change to the extent that Audi’s can. Despite that, what the BMW could do, it did well.

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Finally, and as with several other cars in the sector, the 5 Series also includes a heads-up display (HUD), which BMW says is 70% larger than the unit in the last 5 Series. This shows speed and speed limits right in the windscreen, but it also has some other nifty features to set it apart from its competitors.

It can show road signs and a list of the next few navigation steps, along with a map. It also stacks speed-limit warnings so you can prepare to brake in good time. Although it might seem like a minor point, the HUD’s use of several different colours also makes it easier to read than a monochrome or single-colour display.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Audio

The car I used was fitted with an optional 600W, 16-speaker, Harman Kardon system and it performed extremely well, providing a powerful but balanced tone throughout. With impressively clear highs, atmospheric tracks such as Matt Lange’s “Lying to Myself” sounded crisp, airy and spacious, but thanks to the BMW’s flat, powerful sound signature, the rest of the track is also delivered with poise.

In the 5 Series, drums have punch, while the deep, low notes were delivered with true authority. The only issue? The occasional hand movement would accidentally either increase or decrease the volume.

This actually isn’t the top-of-the-range system, either: that title goes to the 10-channel, 16-speaker, 1,400W Bowers & Wilkins system – and we’re hoping to test that soon.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Connectivity and apps

The 5 Series is the most connected car BMW offers today, partly because it wants to be best friends with your mobile phone … and in some instances replace it. For example, the 5 Series comes with its own Wi-Fi hotspot so it’s possible to connect up to ten devices at a time and use the car’s own 4G connection.

BMW’s apps also let you do everything from check your emails to refresh your Twitter feed, and because the 5 Series’ touchscreen is so big, you can carry out most tasks with something else docked in alongside it in split-screen view.

BMW has also updated its BMW Connected app for the 5 Series, and it’s designed to forge a greater link between your phone and your car than ever before. Called BMW Connected, it lets you do useful things such as pre-condition before the car you get in, or even flash the headlights to make it easier to locate your car in the car park.

The connected app also comes with a 3D remote view, a feature that takes a 3D snapshot of the environment around the car, which can then be shared. BMW says this is useful for letting someone know where the car is, or just helping you remember where you left it. In the future, BMW says that this feature could be triggered by the car’s proximity sensors, so it can alert you when something or someone gets too close.

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BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Alexa and CarPlay

Intriguingly, the app is also compatible with Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant technology, which means it’s possible to control aspects of the 5 Series remotely with your voice. BMW says owners will be able to check their vehicle’s battery charge, fuel and even send over navigation details via an Echo, Echo Dot or any other Alexa-enabled device.

The new 5 Series also comes with both Apple CarPlay and a wireless charger for Android phones, so you get a nice bonus whichever handset you go for. The BMW actually uses a wireless version of CarPlay, too, which really does make a difference to the way you use it. After pairing once, you can leave your phone in your pocket, making the CarPlay experience even more seamless than before. CarPlay also works with BMW’s split-screen function, so you can use BMW’s own system alongside the Apple UI.

However, just like the Nissan Micra, the BMW 5 Series fails to include Android Auto compatibility. That’s a less-than-ideal omission, since Android Auto is included on the new 2017 Mercedes-Benz E Class and on most of the Audi range.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Drive

I drove the new BMW 5 Series on some of the most flowing, demanding roads around Malaga, and it proved itself comfortable on motorways and winding mountain roads alike. While in M mode, the 5 series felt urgent, with responsive steering and quicker throttle response making the BMW go wherever you wanted it to. However, this mode also let you feel the road surface in HD, with bumps and all.

In comfort and adaptive mode, the new BMW 5 Series was a far more sophisticated affair. Although it didn’t have the poise of sport mode, it was far more comfortable on bumpy roads, and ate up motorway with ease. Even at higher speeds, road noise in the 5 Series is practically non existent, and when combined with the smooth ride, it’s very easy to go much faster than you think you are.

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BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Semi-autonomous systems

And for those times when you don’t want the stress of driving, the 5 Series comes with a veritable avalanche of advanced driver-assistance tech, in the form of BMW Co-Pilot. The new BMW is fitted with a stereo camera, ultrasound and radar sensors, and all three work together to offer various semi-autonomous functions.

Dynamic Cruise Control can maintain a specified distance to the car in front, and it also bounces radar off the road to monitor the situation up to two or three cars in front. That means the cruise control is able to pre-emptively slow down and speed up depending on the traffic situation, giving you a smoother, more efficient drive. As you’d expect, the car has autonomous emergency braking to slow it to a complete stop. It also works between 19mph and 155mph, so it’s suitable for motorway driving – or cruising on the Autobahn.

There’s also the Lane Keeping Assistant, which gently steers the car into the middle of the lane if it starts to drift out. Once the system is happy with road markings, it’s easy to switch on, and you probably won’t notice it much of the time. If the car drifts too close to the edge of the lane, however, the system will simply guide it back. However, this isn’t autonomous driving as such, so the system will sound an alarm if you fail to keep your hands on the wheel. If you forget to indicate when changing lanes, you can feel the system fight to keep the car in the middle of the lane.

Most cars have parking assistance – but they don’t do parking assistance as well as the BMW 5 Series. Thanks to a combination of beeps, live camera feeds and overlaid graphics, the BMW 5 Series gives you a wealth of information about what’s around the car, and how close it is. For example, graphics go from green to red to show how close cars are, while a top-down view makes it easy to thread the 5 Series into particularly tight spots.

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I didn’t get to test it during my time with the car, but the BMW 5 Series also includes a self-parking functionality. I did test the car’s remote parking ability, however, and found it was remarkably effective.

As with the 7 Series, this feature allows you to get out the car and park it using the key fob – which is particularly useful for backing it into cramped garages and car-park spaces. The system forces you to walk with the car, so you can keep an eye on its surroundings, but the car does everything else automatically.

BMW 5 Series (2017) review: Price and Verdict

The new BMW 5 Series is one of the most capable saloon cars you can buy right now. On the outside it’s far more stylish and aggressive than it used to be, while on the inside it benefits from a range of new technology that will make your life easier.

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It’s not perfect, and could do with the removal of gesture control and the addition of Android Auto, but features such as the HUD, wireless CarPlay and BMW Connected app make it a very easy car to live with. Starting from £36,000, the 5 Series isn’t cheap compared with E Class or the Audi A5, but it does include a good amount as standard that you have to pay extra for on its rivals. For example, features you’ll probably want like LED headlights, an automatic transmission  and a high-end navigation system are available as standard on the 5 Series, but cost around £4,000 combined to add to its rivals.

If you’re after a classy all-rounder with some serious innovation built-in, the 5 Series should be at the top of your list.