The inside features the more significant upgrades, with the introduction of a new i3-style Panoramic iDrive display, the vast array of instruments which span projected across the interior where the base of the screen meets the far side of the dashboard.
I’m surprised how quickly BMW manages to be rolling this out, but I think it’s a really decent – and an eminently tweakable – instrument cluster. It also means you don't have to look through the steering wheel at the dials, which has given BMW the opportunity to introduce its new steering wheel design here too, which, as in the iX3, I think is less successful.
Knowing that drivers wouldn't have to look through it, the designers made it particularly blocky, and I don’t know for how long I’ll think those with upright spokes have got a quarter-turn of lock applied even in a straight line.
They say it’s sculpted so that it’s easier to hold at a quarter-to-three, which may be true, but I didn’t have a particular problem doing that with a round rim, and when the wheel moves – as wheels are prone to do – it’s less intuitive.
Elsewhere there's a “reduced interior design”, which seems to be shorthand for doing away with the transmission tunnel's iDrive dial and buttons – another move that I think is unhelpful, given the complexity of the touchscreen’s remit.
This is a new 17.9in centre display, with a new operating system that's easier to navigate than the previous one. But with the absence of a rotary controller I do wonder if overall this might not be an improvement, no matter how good are the panoramic view, head-up display or voice control (you shouldn’t be forced to talk to your car, in my view).
Given that any new car, let alone a luxury saloon with as many options as this, has so many different settings, removing buttons just when the wider industry is waking up to their value seems a retrograde step. Oh for that little row of programmable shortcuts that used to be next to the (also missed) heater controls.
Still, the perceived material quality and fit and finish both feel excellent and brought up to date rather deftly. All in BMW says there are 700 different interior finishes, alongside the 500 different ones for outside.
The seats are surely among the most comfortable in the business. And of course it's spacious. At 5.4m long and 1.95m wide across the body, it would be criminal if it weren’t. There’s a 500-litre boot.
Now featuring inside as standard is a new screen for the front passenger, who can take control of the entertainment system, including watching videos – although it’s hard to imagine that many won’t already have a smartphone for that purpose.
Optional but still excellent is a 31.3in, 8K-resolution cinema screen, which swings from the roof, pulls blinds closed when active and, with a 35-speaker audio system, can really immerse rear passengers in an environment much more convincingly than a seatback tablet.
It’s also possible to specify a passenger-side rear chair that extends to quite near horizontal, making it incredibly comfortable (I might have had a doze; don’t judge me). But it pushes the front passenger seat into the dashboard as it goes, where it probably slightly obscures the passenger side mirror, so if you’re undertaking a 7 Series do think carefully about who might be in it and what that means for a chauffeur’s visibility.
The large rear screen obscures the interior rear-view mirror, too, so that gets a BMW-first digital view as an alternative instead.
