2019 Mercedes-Benz C300 Sport Review: 2019 Mercedes-Benz C300 Sport

2019 Mercedes-Benz C300 Sport Review: 2019 Mercedes-Benz C300 Sport

100,000. To be fair, the C300 is a 2008 model, and we've only seen 2007 models so far (of the more-upscale models). But the way cabin tech upgrades go, it might be a couple of model years before we see these tech upgrades in something like the CL550. Mercedes-Benz seriously updated its C-class for 2008, and now offers the C300 Sport, the C300 Luxury, and the C350 Sport, all in sedan form. For stylistic differentiation, the Sport model gets a three-bar grille with a big Mercedes-Benz badge in the middle, while the Luxury trim gets the badge as a hood ornament. We were very impressed with the C300 Sport we tested, which sits at the bottom of Mercedes-Benz's U.S. Along with its new cabin tech features, it drives very well, presenting some serious competition, both in performance and price, to Infiniti's G series. When we got the 2008 Mercedes-Benz C300, we noticed that its voice command system worked very well, offering a lot of intuitive commands to control the navigation, audio, and phone systems.

And we also took note of the updated COMAND system, a knob on the console that mimics the interface in the S550 and CL550. To test out both systems, we selected a guinea pig from the office here, one of our colleagues who was unfamiliar with both interfaces. We wanted to compare the interfaces and also see how a novice handled them. Jasmine France looks at her options on the C300's LCD. Jasmine France, editor of MP3 player reviews for CNET, agreed to be timed while performing three basic tasks, once with the COMAND interface and once with voice command. For the first task, we asked her to use the navigation system to find a place to eat. Using manual control, she tried to enter the names of a couple of restaurants, but none of them showed up. Finally she resorted to drilling down through the restaurant category to Italian cuisine and selecting a nearby restaurant.

Counting her frustrated attempts to find a specific restaurant, her total time was 3 minutes, 59 seconds. Using voice command, she hit another dead end, getting stuck in the address entry rather than restaurant points of interest (POI). Eventually she found the right commands and set a destination for the same restaurant she found with the manual controls, all in 5 minutes, 28 seconds. That's one point for COMAND over voice. Her next task was finding a music station she liked on Sirius Satellite Radio. Using the dial and buttons of the COMAND system, she quickly found the audio selection menu, moved to the Electronic channels category, and selected Area 33, taking only 26 seconds. Using voice command she was helped along by screen prompts showing available commands, but instead of dialing right to her station, she used the Next Station and Previous Station commands to find Area 33, taking 1 minute, 20 seconds. She could have saved some time by issuing the command "Station Area 33," which this voice command system understands.

That's two points for COMAND over voice. The COMAND knob is fairly simple, but it lets you access all the car's cabin tech functions. Her final task was to dial a number using the C300's hands-free Bluetooth system. Using COMAND, she quickly found the phone menu, then input each number. From start to the sound of the phone ringing took 27 seconds, another quick time. Using voice command, she performed the same task. Again, she got to the phone menu right away and started dialing the number. But this process took more time--1 minute, 22 seconds--because she entered each number of the 10-digit phone number one at a time. She could have saved time by speaking the entire number string, but the system prompted her fairly quickly when she started entering the number, making her think it wanted the numbers one at a time. The cabin of the 2008 Mercedes-Benz C300 uses a lot of cool, new features.