Speaking of CUE: it kind of follows the trend of the XT5’s styling in that while you may not realize it at first, it has been updated for 2017. The graphics have been changed a little, but most importantly, the processor is now faster. I haven’t been a huge fan of CUE – always found it a little slow to respond to commands – but it seems to have turned a corner for the better this generation. 2017 also sees the addition of more proper buttons; in the latest SRX, everything was done via the touchpad and touchscreen. In the XT5 you have – huzzah! – actual buttons to control your fan speed and temp. Seat heating/cooling controls, volume and climate control mode controls are still touch-based, though. It’s more responsive than previous, especially noticeable with the volume. With old CUE, I’d often be turning the volume up to 11 when all I was intending was to crank it to 4 or 5; that only happened once during our time with the XT5, possibly because of some greasy fingers incurred from the pastrami sandwiches we’d had for lunch.

It’s a good thing the volume controls work well, because the sound through either the standard 8-speaker system or optional 10-speaker unit is incredibly crisp and clear, and the system can handle heavy volume loads with very little distortion. Seems like your eardrums may burst before the tweeters do. So there’s that.

From entertainment tech we move to driver aids, of which there’s a healthy amount in the XT5. Chief among these is the digital rearview mirror, which acts pretty much exactly as it sounds. Basically, instead of the lever below the mirror setting night/day modes as is usually the case, it switches between the digital and traditional displays. A button on the rear of the mirror, meanwhile, modifies the screen’s brightness.

Cadillac claims the mirror expands your view rearward by 300 percent; remember that in addition to not having to worry about the size of the rear window (the mirror’s camera sits outside the car on the tailgate, right beside the back-up cam) impeding your view, you don’t have to worry about the heads of the rear passengers, either. Just a straight, unobstructed view backward. [Until it snows or gets dirty – Ed]

At first, it is a little disorienting but after a while, I found the toughest aspect to get used to was the fact that I couldn’t look at my rear passenger’s reflection as I talked to them. I swear: I kept trying to see them all day, right up until I pulled into my hotel parking lot at the end of the drive. I may never get used to that one. I guess it’s also strange that as a passenger, you can see exactly what the driver sees.

The rest of the available tech runs the gamut from active lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control, automatic high beams, auto low-speed front and rear braking and emergency brake assist.

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