i just tried this Remote Touch Control for the first time on a dealer loaner 2011 or 2012 RX. i had never even heard of this technology before. i used to always break the ***** of my friends with MBs and BMWs and Audis that they had dated backwards inferior Navigation systems because of joysticks and lack of touchscreens. and that was back in 2004! i was utterly shocked today when i stepped into the loaner RX and went to press the Nav screen. WTF? NO TOUCHSCREEN! NOTHING BUT A CLEAR HARD PLASTIC COVER! i played around with this Remote Touch and don't really like it. i prefer touch screen - but hey that's what i've been used to for 8 years. never in my wildest dreams did i ever think Lexus would go BACKWARDS and remove the touchscreen and copy BMW's crappy joystick. i find it annoying and tedious and non-intuitive to enter in destinations and to navigate the device via a joystick. and it still freezes for address input while you're driving so it doesn't even have the input while driving redeeming value feature. maybe i'd get used to it but my initial impression was Lexus went backwards in technology and not forward. we are in a world where everything is capactive touchscreens - smartphones, tablets, computers, restaurants, etc. why go back to an 80's joystick? terrible!

best wishes to all!

 

I feel the opposite.
The joystick was a pleasure to use on a BMW and RX I owned.
Touch screens like on both my IS and the wife's CR-V are old tech to me and I hate the fingerprints.

 

Touch screens are good, but they are a pain in the **** to reach.

 

It's just a learning curve you need to overcome.

I hate the fingerprints on touchscreens too. If the touchscreens in cars were iPod/iPhone quality it might make me think different though.

 

Touchscreens are the way to go. If any of the newer cell phones have showed us, screens can be coated to not have fingerprints or smudges on them. My galaxy S never has a fingerprint on it... Touchscreens also offer so much more control and many more options than a mouse/joystick type of device. Multi-touch alone is far superior, IMO, to the joystick setup.

 

Wait until you actually drive with it or use it...its genius...the one in the 2013 GS actually moves around took, its not just stationary....

I like touchscreen and remote touch.

 

Sounds like you dont have a problem with remote touch, it that you have been so accustomed to touch screen and do not want to accept the future.

Turns out touch screen severely limits the design limits of a dash because you need to have it in a reachable area. That means its either closer to you and bringing the whole dash forward, or it needs to be lowered on the dash. This means that you line of sight is going to be compromised while you are driving.

I am fine with remote touch for selecting menus and destination, but I HATE how they took away the audio presets hard buttons. It is so much easier to have them on the dash. I like to have my nav on the energy monitor to watch the hybrid powertrain, but when my passenger wants to change stations, he/she must go back to the audio screen and then choose the a preset. I understand this is somewhat fixed in the 2013 GS with the larger nav screen that can show two things at once

 

why not both? why not keep the touchscreen but add the joystick if necessary? this way the customer can decide which he/she wants to use - as opposed to ruling out a car because it only has one or the other. the best of both worlds.

 

Even though I haven't used the remote touch very much (only have it on the LFA), I actually quite like it. The haptic feedback system is excellent and it didn't take long for me to get where I wanted to go while barely looking at the screen.

The LFA certainly falls into the category of car RXSF and Och discussed previously in this thread - that can't use a touch screen due to design and ergonomic limitations

 

I personally like the joystick feature too. It's easier to use when driving, and since you don't have to reach over and keep touching the screen, the screen stays cleaner for longer as well. I admit i didn't like it at first but after driving a BMW 335i with one for about a week i ended up really enjoying it.

 

Both are fine, my gripe is the graphics and resolution. This is 2011!!

 

I can't wait to see Lexus expand the 12.3 inch screen across the board!

 

I agree the tech moved backwards a step. Look at computers, keyboard > mouse > touch screen. The joystick is basically a mouse.

However it's a trade-off i'm willing to accept, car manufacturers are using them so they can place larger screens in the dash. Look at the screen placement for the newer cars, it's higher up on the dash. I'm 6'3" with long arms and i can barely reach some of them.

 

i am actually quite a fan of the remote touch. the idrive on bmw and command on mb, they are far more painful to use. yes, i have both and i use them every day. idrive is the most horrible, the new one is better. command is another step further, even better but still need getting used to

i never had to "learn" remote touch. i jumped in the rx loaner and i started using it already. if by now anyone doesn't know how to use a mouse, that's a big problem.

compare it to touch screen though, yeah touch screen is definitely the easiest. but i really start to hate the finger prints, and in order to do touch screen, the screen location has to be within reach, and can't be as high up (which i much prefer since it doesn't take my eyes off the road as much. moreover, the remote touch allows the screen to be pushed in further, avoiding sun glare, which is a BIG problem on most lexus i have owned

i expect larger screen in the LS

 

^^ I think you and I (and most people) can just jump into a Lexus with remote touch and know what to do because the interface is very similar to that of a touch screen Lexus. Lexus designed remote touch so that they didnt have to redesign the whole nav to accommodate a turn ****.