• Stylish screen-centric cabin
• Airy interior, especially with panoramic roof
• Media system slow but capable

The clean, elegant dashboard houses a new console featuring a biggest-in-class 8.7-inch touchscreen for control of Renault’s R-Link 2 infotainment system. It shoulders aside the central air vents in somewhat cavalier fashion.

The portrait-orientation of the screen is a good thing, allowing you to see more of the road ahead on the map, and less of places drifting invisibly by to left and right. The system looks good and works adequately, though the vast wealth of menus available can be a little baffling to navigate and occasionally tardy in response.

If all else fails, read the instructions. What wasn’t available at launch, and wasn’t until 2018, was either Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

Renault Scenic: A fully-digital experience

Given the number of rival manufacturers who bang on about the importance of such connectivity in every new offering, it’s unusual to come across one that didn’t hit the mark at launch.

There are no analogue dials here, and no dash-top central speedometer either; Renault design boss Laurens van den Acker doesn’t warm to such devices, so we find a TFT faux-analogue driver’s instrument binnacle in the usual location, which looks, and functions, well enough.

This top-of-the-range Signature Nav specimen also benefits from a segment-first colour head-up display, the white content of which all but vanishes if you don polarising sunglasses.

• Firm, well-shaped front seats
• Stiff-legged ride quality feels sporty
• Disappointingly-cramped rear and boot

The Scenic’s front seats are comfortable, but an otherwise fine driving position benefits from raising the seat as high as possible in order to locate the extremities of the car.

Aside from fairly intrusive wind noise from the door mirrors, the biggest distraction to occupants is the occasionally questionable ride quality. Despite a tyre wall height boosted to 107mm with comfort specifically in mind, the undercarriage struggles to remain supple at low speeds, crashing over obstacles of the kind that blight British roads.

Happily it does settle down as speeds rise, making the Scenic respectably comfortable in the cruise, but somewhat jittery in the urban environment.