Ford Edge 2011 Tech Review

The 8” center console is basically divided into four zones corresponding to the menus on the right LCD of the dashboard. You also have a home button as well as a settings button that do what they suggest. Your home screen can be set to a wallpaper of your choice making the car very customizable. Speaking of customizing, you can also change the ambient lighting in the car.

Writing about the many awesome features on the Edge would make the article quite lengthy so I decided to do a short video instead that goes through what this car has to offer.

As you can see, the Ford Edge 2011 is a geek’s dream car. The two USB ports along with the SD card slot make it awesome for multimedia enthusiast. I connected my iPhone without any issues and through USB, got all my tracks with cover art listed on the big screen. Alternatively, A2DP also works and I was able to stream any track or podcast from my iPhone, however, I lost track info and album art doing that. Strangely, videos from my iPhone could not be played on the Edge’s big screen which was a bit odd because if I tried to play one while driving the car, I would get the message to stop the car to see the video but when I switched to P, nothing came up.

Sadly, navigation is not an option in the Middle East which is a bit of a let down as that has pretty much become the standard in mid-end cars. From what I’ve been told, it will be included in the next Explorer so its probably just a matter of targeting different markets than anything else. While navigation didn’t make it, a Wi-Fi hotspot did and you can use the Edge with a USB 3G dongle or your phone’s Bluetooth tethering capabilities to offer all passengers in your car Wi-Fi connectivity. Score, again.

Last but certainly not the least, voice commands are also an integral part of Sync and MyFord Touch. You can say many things such as changing the climate or fan speed, setting radio stations or making calls purely through your voice. In our tests, this mostly worked however, there were times when we were ready to bang our heads. I also faced a couple of other minor issues such as one particular USB drive, when inserted in the top USB slot would stop the center screen from powering up. As always, lets blame Microsoft as it is their technology powering the car.

Overall, the Ford Edge 2011 is a tour-de-force when it comes to technology. The three LCD screens, the USB ports and the Wi-Fi capabilities will make anyone who likes technology instantly fall in love with the Edge. And the best thing is that Ford has done their homework well by making all this tech very accessible for the average consumer. Competitively priced at AED 99,950 for the based model and AED 149,950 fully loaded, it is definitely the SUV to get if you want something on the smaller side that doesn’t cost as much and offers tech better than anything else in its class.