I have a newish Mazda 3, reliability is flawless so far but I'm not sure the driver assistance systems are really better or worse between makes
We have some country roads where there is enough space for cars to park on one side, leaving (just over) one lane free for traffic. The problem is the side the cars park on alternates from left to right, so you end up doing a "slaom", albeit with plenty of space and visibility.
Quite often the car thinks I'm heading straight into one of the rows of parked cars, and starts braking before I steer onto the other side of the road.
The active lane assist also takes some getting used to, though this can easily be replaced with a warning or disabled completely.
The car didn't come with carplay or android auto; I have sideloaded a community developed version of android auto through the USB port and it works perfectly - much better than many integrated setups!
Can you turn that feature off? I test drove a CX-3 and 3 that had the lane departure warning system. The lack of compatability of the Mazda infotainment system is also a bugbear of mine - I bet they did this because they didn't want to pay Google and Apple for the licencing rights, which is daft IMHO as its a major draw for the modern car buyer, as is having a decent sat nav system, which Mazda's isn't (its not terrible, but its not that good either).
Annoyingly, you can't just buy the non-Nav version of their cars and effectively upload an add-on satnav system without actually hacking (apparently it is possible and you don't need to be a computer whizz to do so) like you would do for a sat nav app on a smartphone, presumably because of the lack of integration with the two biggest phone OSes. Hopefully they will fix this for the mk4 Mazda3 and other forthcoming vehicles.
It is noticeable that more of the European makes have 'operational issues' as regards interraction between firmware, electrical and sensor systems than the Far Eastern makes, which seem to be far more conservative about adding features on their vehicles just to pander to fashion and to keep up with the Joneses. Some feactures, like the one on phones/satnav I mentioned are worthwhile, but most others, including many safety features, appear to me to be just thrown on as afterthoughts without much D in their R&D process.
I now actively shy away from models and makes that go overboard on these gadgets and features, especially when decent fetures like automatic A/C (climate control) is often only found on upper spec models with a LOT of the unnecessary and complex gadgets and features that seamingly are unreliable and sometimes downright danergous. I still find it staggering that VW only offers climate control on the Golf GTi and above as standard but only as an optional extra below that, and yet on the lower/mid spec models (like the GT and others) you get a whole raft of other gadgets, most of which I have no need for.
Admitedly some are just to please the safety brigade to get the madatory 5 star NCAP rating (its not as though a 4 star car is 'unsafe' [mine isn't]), but it rather makes that rating useless if they are all (barring a few) 5 star rated, so nothing to compare there then. Just gadgets and performance.
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