2025 Subaru Forester Hybrid Tech Review: The Screen's the Biggest Problem

• Our Subaru Forester Hybrid is perfectly nice to drive.
• But the touchscreen seems intent on ruining the experience.
• It's unacceptably laggy and slow for a modern car.

At first glance, the screen seems fine. It's big, mimicking the vertical layout first started by Tesla and adopted by so many others. The icons are about an inch wide, so they're easy to find and tap. The Subie even has physical knobs and buttons flanking the screen for things like volume and temperature controls, so you're not forced to use it for every single thing like in some other modern cars. I like that.

Can ... you ... say ... slow?

But the actual user experience with the display is ruined by it being one of the slowest touchscreens I've used in recent years. If your grandma has ever told you her computer is acting funny, only for you to discover it's so bloated with garbageware that it barely responds to a mouse click, you'll know what I mean. OK, maybe the Forester isn't that bad, but for a modern car, it's unacceptable. 

For example, there's a splash screen when you turn the car on that lasts a few seconds, followed by a short message from Subie's legal team about paying attention to the road while using the system. Tap "I agree" to make it go away and ... one Mississippi, two Mississippi ... the system "boops" to acknowledge that I've tapped the screen ... three Mississippi, four Mississippi ... and finally the lawyers' message disappears and the rest of the system loads. From startup to a usable system takes about 15 seconds, as long as you're quick on that "I agree" tap.

OK, so it's slow to boot. If that were the only problem, I could forgive this tech. But it's the accumulation of all the lags, regardless of what you're asking of the system, even if it's something as simple as turning on the seat heaters. It's still slow to respond even after the system has been up and running for a while, with a measurable lag between tap, "boop" and action. Sometimes it's so slow to respond that I wonder if I actually tapped the right spot on the screen, so sometimes I'll tap it again, only to undo whatever it was I was doing in the first place or select an unintended action. In an amazing display of self-control, I never punched the screen when this happened, although I came close once or twice.

CarPlay is no better

Sometimes in these situations, just using the smartphone integration is quicker, but Apple CarPlay isn't my savior this time around. It’s just as laggy, and on top of that, the car sometimes takes a long time to actually connect to my phone. That said, it always eventually connects, unlike some other cars in our fleet.

To give the Forester every benefit of the doubt, I even checked whether there was an available software update. Alas, we're on the latest version.

Real bummer

The sad part is that's the only major issue I have with the Forester. It's comfortable around town, quiet enough on the highway, has good cargo space, and the 32 mpg it returned when I was driving isn't bad. The audio system sounds good, and the EyeSight setup of driver's aids works well enough that I used it more often than not. It's a nice little SUV, and that's before engaging in any of the off-road shenanigans Subaru built its reputation on. 

Hopefully, when Subaru updates the Forester in a couple of years, it'll add more memory, a better processor, or something to improve the user experience. In the meantime, for me at least, this touchscreen is a deal killer.

Photos by Keith Buglewicz