There used to be a difference inside between the petrol 5, which got more buttons and a smaller screen, and the electric E5, which got the opposite. Now all 5s are like the E5, because customers found it looked more modern. Presumably they never actually tried to use any of it.
Anyhow, the design is contemporary, the build quality is solid and there are plenty of soft-touch surfaces, but it’s all very rather generic, with next to no physical controls. The materials also give off quite an unpleasant plastic smell.
Early cars had quite a convoluted infotainment system, but the updated version is much better, with a decent selection of customisable shortcuts, and climate controls that remain on screen permanently. Both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are wireless.
Oddment storage is fine, and the central cubby is deep and can be fed by the air-conditioning system, should you want to keep, for example, a sandwich in there. The sloped section of the centre console also cradles phones, and that’s useful if, for whatever reason, you don’t want to link up and use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto via the central display.
The 5’s packaging is rather compromised. The seat is set high, to the point where very tall drivers might struggle with head room. The steering column has plenty of adjustment, but the seat cushion is very flat, so it’s not particularly comfortable if you have longer legs.
That rakish, sloping roofline comes at the expense of head room in the back (not to mention a very small rear window, inhibiting visibility). At 680mm, rear leg room is also short of what you would find in a Nissan Qashqai and even some smaller cars such as the Hyundai Kona. The shortfall isn’t too marked, but along with the way the side rails sit low, it creates a sense of tightness.
Boot space is also poor, at an official 380 litres (370 litres in the Hybrid) – or 76 litres less than in the considerably smaller Ford Puma. The Qashqai offers 504 litres and the MG HS 463 litres. We suspect that Omoda’s figure doesn’t factor in the shallow cavity beneath the boot floor, but this is still a small space.
When taken with the constraints of the second row, it’s clear that the 5 isn’t particularly clever in packaging terms, given that Omoda had nearly 4.5m of length to work with.