Mild styling differences aside, the Ibiza’s new cabin is an instantly recognisable carrier of the current VW Group gene.
Its new proportions – as they were obviously intended to do – firmly locate the car in the middle ground between the Mii and the Leon, with the layout and ergonomics simply scaled to match.
As both are eminently well-judged, they are to the car’s considerable benefit. Nothing that you come into contact with on a daily basis is poorly positioned or badly made, just as nothing you need to make immediate sense of is crude or illegible.
The incidentals are astutely handled, too: there is a large cubby for your phone, with easily accessible charging ports; there are reasonably spacious door bins; and there are two accessible if inevitably closely packed cupholders.
Almost as important, the aesthetic specific to Seat is also generally pleasing. Where the previous Ibiza felt a wee bit unbaked, both in look and feel, its replacement has ripened into a much more mature appearance.
Inevitably, this doesn’t preclude the use of cheap plastic – a commodity that the previous model had in abundance – but its deployment is cunningly concealed with either the appearance of soft-touch cladding or the clever use of matt (but not dull) finishes.
It helps, of course, that in SE Technology trim there is in the middle of it all a substantial and expensive-looking touchscreen, which tends to steal the focus from its cost-effective surround.
Seat’s Media System Plus is a recognisable evolution of the modular infotainment technology that the VW Group bundles with the MQB platform. The larger 8.0in touchscreen accounts for the ‘Technology’ in the SE Technology trim level. Lesser variants are equipped with a 5.0in touchscreen.
The upgraded kit comes with the same largely excellent sat nav system that features elsewhere in the group. The system itself, familiar from the Ateca, has mostly dispensed with physical buttons, although (gratifyingly) the knobs for volume and selection remain, as do function shortcuts.
Less persuasively, Seat persists with casting sub-menu options to the four corners of the screen. It remains difficult to operate.
