Ah, the tricky mid-cycle refresh. A time to atone for past sins, make entirely new ones, or more likely, rationalize features across an automaker’s lineup. While these tweaks midway through a car’s lifespan have historically focused on styling, more and more automakers are using them to radically upgrade the cabin technology in existing models. Acura doesn’t appear to have hopped on this bandwagon, because it appears that weird product silo-ing appears to have resulted in the updated 2025 Acura RDX not having rectified its one and only sin. Let me explain.
For the most part, the third-generation Acura RDX is a great little premium crossover. It’s quick enough, responsive enough, has a solid all-wheel-drive system, is available with a banging stereo, and doesn’t cost as much as the German competition. However, it does have one truly thorny bit: you control the infotainment through a weird sort of trackpad.
Acura’s True Touchpad interface works in two different ways. In the native infotainment system, wherever you press on the trackpad corresponds directly to an input on the screen, and while this works fine on the big top menu tiles, it can be a bit fiddly in smaller sub-menus. However, if you’re in Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, then the trackpad works almost exactly like the trackpad on your laptop, and as you can imagine, that’s difficult to operate when going down the freeway.
The result is one of the worst infotainment input devices since Lexus decided to use a mouse in its cars, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s slowly disappearing from the Acura lineup. It makes sense that the Integra launched with a simple touchscreen because it’s basically a Civic, but then Acura cut the touchpad out of the MDX three-row crossover in favor of a touchscreen, so it gave some hope that the touchpad would be disappearing across the lineup. Apparently not.
In a way, it makes sense that the trackpad hasn’t disappeared in the Acura RDX yet, even if that’s disappointing. Different projects have different teams working on them, along with different budgets. It’s possible that not only was the budget not there to put a regular touchscreen in the RDX, but maybe nobody was aware of just what the MDX team was getting into. It happens.
So, if the infotainment screen isn’t new for 2025, what is? Well, a new grille simplifies the front end a touch and new wheels join the party, but the big changes lay inside. A redesigned center console features an easily accessible wireless phone charger and bigger cup holders, while the optional 16-speaker ELS Studio 3D surround sound system can be specced with illuminated door speakers on top trims. Speaking of top trims, they also get full leather upholstery, and some extra ambient lighting in the console. All trims now get widescreen wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and that’s about it.
Under the hood, you’ll still find a two-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine pumping out 272 horsepower at 6,500 rpm and 280 lb.-ft. of torque from 1,600 rpm to 4,500 rpm, hitched to a 10-speed automatic transmission and Acura’s trick SH-AWD all-wheel-drive system. Unusually for a transverse all-wheel-drive setup, it can send 70 percent of torque to the rear axle, and a torque vectoring rear differential can then send up to 100 percent of rear axle torque to the outside rear wheel, promoting nimble cornering. The result is one of the more driver-focused compact luxury crossovers on the market, and a tempting option for anyone who isn’t a fan of the styling on the new BMW X3.
The 2025 Acura RDX does deserve to be on your shortlist if you’re shopping in this segment, but that touchpad-controlled infotainment system really makes it a case of try-before-you-buy. With a steep learning curve and maddening Apple CarPlay and Android Auto operation, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you can get around it, the RDX should still be a good upscale crossover. Expect pricing to be announced once it goes on sale later this month, but don’t be surprised if it sticks reasonably close to the current model’s price spread.
(Photo credits: Acura)
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One of the first things I do on any of my laptops is disable the trackpad. I tried it for about an hour and the number of times the heel of my hand changed cursor position was infuriating.
Every horizontal surface will always be filled with something. In a car? As a trackpad?Just plan stupid.
I hated that trackpad in my TLX. Acura needs to get rid of the weird pushbutton stack too.
Well, this definitely tracks…
I find the flak that the touchpad gets really frustrating. It is a really misunderstood UI. It takes about 2 weeks for my clients to adjust to it, after that it is perfectly fine. I mean, I have had octogenarians that have learned it and use it well.
MDX changed to the touchscreen as noted, I had more than a few clients hurry up and trade a 2022 for a 2024 because they preferred the touchpad. The feedback I got from touchpad to touchscreen buyers is that they would have preferred the touchpad.
A big part of this is that it launched in 2018 for the 2019 RDX, that was everyone’s first experience with it and the system took forever to boot and froze a fair amount. After they beefed up the processing power in 2022, it is MUCH faster and easier to use.
I can count on one hand the amount of people that refused to buy an Acura because of the touchpad after they drove and tested the vehicle. The real question, is how many people skipped over a good overall vehicle completely, because car reviewers felt the need to incessantly talk about how much they hate a system they barely attempted to adjust to before making a judgement.
I’ve never used a track set up like this, but to me it seems like it would be safer once adjusted. Half the problem with the touch screen is making sure you’ll actually hit the button before a bump in the road throws you off. I’ve been window shopping used TLXs and I do like that the ones I’m looking at have the touch pad.
That really was the whole philosophy behind the touchpad to start with, to not have to reach and touch a screen. The whole line up used to have dual screens, one was touch (including climate controls) and the other was controlled by a dial. Whoever thought using a screen for climate control needs to be fired. The TLX is probably the best application of the touchpad UI, if you have not, I highly recommend test driving one.
I have not test drove one, and that’s probably for the best haha. I used to have a TSX that I absolutely loved.
Our Odyssey has the dual screen set up and I hate it with a passion. It’s very outdated, pretty much impossible to upgrade, and the bottom screen because of how dated the system is just goes unused.
Even streaming audio from the phone is a chore. There’s a major delay when skipping songs, pausing, etc. (volume works fine) that you have to use the phone’s controls to perform such actions.
I don’t get how it’s any better than a knob, though? Especially for stuff like CarPlay and Android Auto, there’s no reason to have a cursor that can get stuck in the ‘no man’s zone’ between apps when a knob, preferably mounted on the steering wheel, can scroll through all the options in less than a second.
That is a big misunderstanding with this system, and why it is not truly like a laptop. There is no ‘no mans land’. It will only highlight apps or options on the screen and jump to the next ones as you slide your finger across it. IMHO, I prefer it over a dial as I do not need to scroll through options I am not looking for just to get where I want to.
Wait, somebody put a trackpad in a CAR? I hate trackpads passionately in any context; it could literally be a dealbreaker if I ever found myself in an Acura showroom contemplating this vehicle. Which isn’t likely, but still. What are these people thinking?
The trackpad doesn’t bother me as much as a lack of cell phone holder. Why do automakers refuse to design dashboards with proper cell phone holders that are conveniently next to a USB charge port?
Oh wait… I know… they want to force people to use their built in sat-nav systems to push subscription revenue.
Assholes.
This refusal to offer something they must know everyone wants reminds me of how long automakers held out with offering built in USB ports for charging.
We had one of these as a loaner since our 2018 MDX was getting recall work for a week and a half. That stupid touch pad was not good and it’s certainly not easy to fumble and fuck around with while you are driving which isn’t surprising. The center stack was truly ugly. Lots of soft touch materials though which was nicer, more than our MDX. One nice thing was that in sport mode the thing was quite peppy. Overall though we were most certainly glad to have our MDX back!
The reason this touchpad sucks is it makes you focus more on the screen because there’s no tactile feedback. Everyone should use an iDrive/Mazda wheel it’s the best for keeping your eyes on the road. Perhaps touchscreen is enabled for phone projection
The designer of that center stack should be fired, I mean yay buttons, but why make everything so ugly?
If it weren’t for the dumb trackpad it would be fine. The shift could be put anywhere but they had to design around the god awful trackpad.
I’m w/ fruit snack on this. Straight lines. Angles. Curves. Buttons. Knobs. Trackpad. Screen. Red. Black. Chrome. Satin. Gloss.
What a shit show lol.
Oh I wasn’t defending it. It is a shitshow, but the central worst thing was designing the whole thing so that the trackpad rested around a comfortable driving position.
Wife drives a ’21 RDX, I don’t understand the steep learning curve but definitely understand the maddening (at times) navigation within CarPlay and AA.
My In-Laws, both MIL and SIL have recent year RDX’s. I generally like them, probably one of the best value in Mid-Compact SUV. I recently borrowed one for a week and I ‘d agree, a “steep learning curve” but it did feel very unintuitive to me. Especially when driving and using Android Auto. The touch sensitivity seemed erratic.
I might have missed something that would have made my life easier, since I didn’t spend all that much time in the car, but it was by far the most frustrating system I have used in awhile. Many people complain about Mazda, before the added the touch screen back, but the scroll wheel is quick and you can do it all be feel. I would take that one 10/10 times over what was in their RDX
This is an incredibly stupid take. Auto journos spend 20 minutes in a car and can’t get the hang of something because they’re used to the UI in their DD and declare it awful. It’s akin to telling the whole world that Nick’s or Red Wing doesn’t know how to make a pair of boots because you didn’t bother to break them in for more than an hour.
Or, maybe they see and drive many different vehicles and are easily able to ascertain whether a UI is good or shit.
If this one’s anything like the crap touchpad thing in a recent rental MB A180, it’s shit.
So you tried to use it once for 5 minutes and declared it shit because you weren’t used to it. Great job. You could be a journalist!
I said rental, not a test drive; try five days. Great job yourself.
Regardless, I could tell within five minutes I wasn’t going to be a fan. The annoyance factor only grew worse, coupled with more rattles than my ’98 Chevy truck.
I generally agree, the infotainment takes are always way out of proportion. My brother has a CX-50, with no touchscreen, and that thing took 1 drive to get the hang of it, if I had it a month I wouldn’t even think about it.
That said, my MIL and SIL have recent year RDX’s and I recently borrowed one for a week. That trackpad is just super frustrating. I was definitely unintuitive and there are design choices that I wasn’t clear where just terrible or I was missing something. It was incredibly frustrating to use. There is no physical feedback for location, so you have to track the cursor, which is just a dim white outline, on the screen. So you have to look at the screen to find out what you are looking at.
The Android Auto wouldn’t split screen correctly, 1/3 of the screen was taken by an a grey box that informed me I was using Android Auto. I wish I had taken a picture it is so bad.
Despite having a ton of button on the wheel and console, I couldn’t ever figure out if there was a single button to let me answer and end phone calls.
I only spent a week. If it was my car, I am sure I’d get used to it but it was my least favorite I have used.
Yup, our Lexus has one. Fortunately, it is required very rarely:
The illuminated speakers are both amazing and incredibly stupid. Looks like the speaker is on fire.
I wasn’t going to buy this in any case, but I am really going to not buy this.
Maybe they would have space to bring the screen closer if they didn’t take up half the dash with the “Driving mode” knob
The fact that the biggest knob on the dash isn’t for volume should be a master class in ‘bad infotainment UI 101’. How often do normal people even use drive modes?
AA and CP are absolutely not designed for any type of input besides touch. Both of my cars have rotary controllers and I despise it. Just turning off shuffle on Spotify means you have to nudge the controller right to get to the right panel, then down to get to the Spotify tile, then push down to open Spotify, then turn/scroll all the way to the right to open the overflow menu, oops you went to far and now you’re highlighting the playback bar, back it up, then turn/scroll all the way left to put the cursor on the shuffle button, then push down again to toggle shuffle. It’s insane. Something that would take two taps and literally half a second on a touchscreen has you nudging and turning a knob all over, taking your eyes off the road to track a cursor and figure out which direction you need to nudge/turn to get it to where you need it (which, especially in Maps, isn’t always intuitive). It’s like trying to play with a friggin’ Bop-It while driving. It’s not as bad in the native UI because it’s designed around it, but for AA/CP it’s an absolutely vile input method. Say all you will about touchscreens being unsafe but I’ve been living with rotary controllers since 2018, and they crank that up to 11.
I’m driving a family member’s 2024 RDX at present and this is driving me nuts. I’m trying to use the native sat nav as it projects directions on the HUD and my phone won’t connect with CarPlay and, for example, the touchpad has variously interpreted a single line as letter I, a letter L, a number 1 and a slash. And then positioning the cursor in the right place on the screen is nigh on impossible when the car’s at a standstill let alone on the move. Aside from this and the cruise control that doesn’t hold the set speed downhill, I really like it. Beautifully built, decent performance and not too big.
I’m a simple person who prefers simple websites.
For some reason emojis in the headline photo do not encourage me to read the article.
I much prefer an emoji to a Youtube face. I very much dislike the “surprise” or “disgust” looks that most videos have to try and drive clicks.
It drives clicks, just like “Youtube face” does. People use them because they’re known to work.
Unless every Autopian reader upgraded to Rich Corinthian Leather, I think we should reasonably expect they need to maximize viewership however they can.
I appreciate your rational response.
Man, I feel like such a dinosaur reading this comment. My first reaction was “There’s an emoji?”
Apparently I still choose which articles to read based on the title more than the top shot.