• Impressive build quality
• Soft-touch materials
• Touchscreen standard

Quality and layout

You can probably see a pattern emerging here, but the HS’s cabin is surprisingly well built considering it costs around £6,000 less than its closest rivals. The dashboard is covered in soft-touch material, there aren’t many scratchy plastics in your line of sign and the switchgear all feels reasonably sturdy.

You even get some gimmicky technology such as customisable ambient lighting, which helps keep the interior interesting. Our only complaint was that MG has elected to store all of the car’s functions (that’s navigation, heating controls and vehicle settings) in the infotainment system. Which, as we’ll soon explain, is a major issue.

Infotainment and tech

Here’s where the HS starts to fall over. It turns out that the MG’s interior is a little superficial – while that digital dashboard and floating infotainment screen look smart, the hardware that props the systems up isn’t anywhere near as good as you’ll get in the best SUVs on the market.

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While testing a pre-facelift HS, the infotainment system failed completely, leaving us with a black screen and no access to the media system, climate control and navigation functions. The digital gauge cluster also doesn’t display route instructions so, if you’re somewhere unfamiliar and the screen fails, you’ll have to break out the paper map.

When it’s working, it takes a couple of seconds before the touchscreen registers your inputs, which makes the system frustrating to use – especially when you’re trying to make quick adjustments to the temperature at a set of lights, for example. The graphics aren’t as crisp as you’ll find on rival systems, either.

Comfort

• Seats uncomfortable if you’re tall…
• … but they have a lot of adjustment
• Heating elements are scorching

The MG HS’s seating position seems to be quite subjective – how comfortable you find it will depend entirely on what shape you are. Our shorter testers found the seats to be very comfortable, praising the level of adjustment, excellent lumbar support setting and powerful heating elements on offer.

However, you’ll struggle to get comfortable if you’re tall. The seat’s lowest position is set very high up – and, if you’re over six feet tall, you’ll lose a huge chunk of your forward visibility to the bulky sensor mounted behind the rear-view mirror, which is right in your line-of-sight. The steering wheel also doesn’t have enough adjustment, so you need to choose between either having over-extended arms or scrunched-up legs.

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And while those bucket-style sports seats might look great, they have a tendency to force taller drivers’ heads forward, which can give you a stiff neck on longer journeys. The setup also prevents you from checking your mirrors and your blind spots properly as, when you spin your head around, it’s restricted by the seat.