Guys,
I happened to visit Blue Hyundai in Mysore road, Bangalore today. As I own Vento Diesel Highline, I was naturally curious to compare Vento & "Fluidic" Verna. I took many snaps through my phone & here they are along with my observations.
(pardon me for the quality in some of the photos)
1. First I was a bit confused if the new front-look is similar to i10 or i20. So took these snaps. Compare yourselves:
2. Unlike Vento which has only two airbags even in highline, the new Verna has 6. I could see this on the B pillar from inside. BTW, do you know where these six are? 2 curtain bags running along the length of cabin, 2 side airbags & [COLOR=inherit][COLOR=inherit][COLOR=inherit]2 in[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] front (as read in the brochure). Somehow, I feel the the curtain bags are hardly useful for the rear seat passengers. It doesnt help in case of a head-on collision.
3. Music system with Bluetooth is something I badly miss in Vento. Still, IMO, the one in Verna was not convincing for the reason that it could have been an LCD HU. However, I could see the controls to take or cut calls straight from the steering wheel which is really nice. Also, I feel (correct me if am wrong) the mic for the system is embedded just above the driver's head. See this pic.
4. The height adjust for the driver's seat, IMO is better in Vento. See the below pic. The control wheel to lift the seat is in the frontside of the seat & when I rotated it, I felt as though only the front tip of the seat is lifting up; but not the back portion of the seat. Essentially, if you keep looking through the windshield while lifting the seat, increasing the height will not given much of an elevated view angle of the road. Anyway, that is my opinion.
In Vento's case, the height adjust lever lifts the seat from the back side & not front and view elevation angle sharply rises.
5. This is actually interesting. Looks like Verna learned from Vento's glitch of the handbrake-armrest placement. However, even Verna's solution is not satisfactory. See the pic below & notice the distance. If you keep your elbow joint on the armrest, your palm doesn't reach the gear knob! Sameway, if you grab the gear knob, you can't keep your elbow on the armrest! It may just be used to rest the hand while not changing the gear, resulting in continuous exercise to the elbow
6. Compartment below armrest is really deep as compared to Vento's. In Vento, you can only keep either a mobile or sunglass & nothing more. In this case, you can keep a lot! Looks like, the central space from below the gear knob till below the rear seat (sans the hump) is gifted to Verna owner. Nice.
7. I tested the "smartkey" a little. First of all, asked a sales guy to hold the key just outside the front door while I was seated in driver's seat. Then I tried switching on the engine. It didnt start! Tried some more possibilities. It worked as it should.
Then I brought the key inside the car & pressed the start button. It started. Now, I moved the key just a bit outside the window. The display started showing "Key is not in vehicle". Overall, very nice implementation. And I couldnt locate any sensor whatsoever. See the pic.
8. One more important feature is the parking sensor. Nicely integrated into the system. It automatically activates, the moment the gear is changed to reverse slot (to "P" slot in AT) with a quick beep & closes automatically when changed back. Wow. I am badly in need of this in Vento.
9. I could also notice the dead pedal, which is again absent in Vento.
10. The "feel" of shutting the door in Vento is better than Verna I felt. The sound of that thud is more pleasing in Vento.
The guys at the showroom said the waiting period is 2 months as of now. I checked with them about previous two versions: "simple" verna & "transform" verna. They are giving 50K discount for existing transform ones & 60K for the simple ones and had 4 or 5 of them in stock.
I came out of the showroom towards my Vento & few people (5-6) gathered around asking about Vento. I ended up giving small demos to them. I could easily notice they were all comparing the features right there & it was evident Verna Vs. Vento debate was heating up and the Customer is the final winner anyway.