Mercedes Hyperscreen is a wall-to-wall, 56-inch infotainment display
Mercedes-Benz's latest multimedia array will launch in the upcoming EQS electric sedan, but the screen is getting a standalone virtual CES rollout.
If multimedia display real estate is how you measure progress in the automotive world, then the upcoming 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS will be one of the most futuristic cars ever built. That's all thanks to MBUX Hyperscreen, an arresting new infotainment system from Mercedes-Benz that makes its debut on Thursday just ahead of CES 2021.
Scheduled to go on sale in the first half of the year, the all-electric EQS' groundbreaking optional multimedia array will likely be its signature feature, and at first glance it's easy to see why. MBUX Hyperscreen is comprised of several individual displays mounted in a single glass-covered housing. This unified assembly stretches clear across the dashboard, nearly from one A pillar to the other, making it the interior's most prominent element.
MBUX Hyperscreen's multitude of displays spans about 56 inches in total and provides passengers with around 377 square inches of real estate to play with. Advanced OLED panels are used for the center and passenger screens, providing brilliant colors and inky blacks. That display for the front passenger also supports up to seven profiles so everyone in the family can customize it to their liking. And when no one is seated in the passenger's chair, the screen displays decorative digital art to keep things neat.
Air vents are elegantly integrated into the overall design.
Both ends of this panel are punctuated by physical vents, which are elegantly integrated into the screen's overall design. (Too bad engineers haven't figured out how to digitize airflow just yet.) To help reduce distortion, the MBUX Hyperscreen's glass panel is slightly curved, and it's also treated to an aluminum-silicate coating to help reduce glare and prevent scratches. Anything to enhance durability is a good idea; we'd hate to know how much this piece of hardware costs to replace if it ever cracked or got scraped.
Driving this next-generation infotainment system are eight CPU cores backed up by a whopping 24GB of RAM. With those specs, the Hyperscreen should respond immediately. Beyond that, a whopping 12 actuators are mounted beneath the screen to provide haptic feedback everywhere you can touch.
The MBUX Hyperscreen's hardware is certainly impressive, but don't let all that electronic wizardry intimidate you, it's designed to not only be speedy but extremely intuitive as well. The current MBUX infotainment system, which has been around since 2018 when it launched on the compact A-Class , is performant and visually appealing, though its learning curve is steep because it offers so much functionality. Keeping things simple, Mercedes-Benz engineers added a so-called zero layer to the MBUX Hyperscreen, which eliminates the need to dig through various menus or use voice commands to access certain functions. Important, commonly used applications are always in the driver's field of view and immediately accessible.
This system features a new user interface that should be much simpler to figure out.
Another pillar of the MBUX Hyperscreen is artificial intelligence. The system can learn your habits and preferences and proactively respond. If, for instance, you call a particular person on a certain day each week, the car can remind you to do that. If you often use the heated seat and heated steering wheel simultaneously, MBUX Hyperscreen can prompt you to turn them both on at the same time. If you always use the suspension-lift feature at a particular location to navigate, say, a steep entrance ramp or rutted driveway, the system can remember that GPS location and prompt you to raise the car when you return.
There's always something intriguing happening in the world of automotive infotainment systems. Whether it's Tesla's frequent software updates, those beautiful screens in the 2021 Cadillac Escalade or new features coming to smartphone-mirroring systems like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, there's plenty to be excited about. With the introduction of MBUX Hyperscreen in the new EQS electric sedan, Mercedes-Benz is looking to one-up its rivals with a system that's as eye-catching as it is intelligent.
