One week after I collected my new E class coupe, including all the top tech extras, Comand Online, Premium Plus, twin 12.3" displays, builtin modem, internet, wifi, etc.

The car is nice to drive and very comfortable. It looks lovely, and certainly has the wow factor when sitting inside the car. But sadly, the Comand Online "user experience" is so far a major let down.

1. Because the car has a built in modem (they call it a Telematics Services Communication Module), the owner has to purchase a data tariff from Mercedes' partner, Vodafone, to make use of the "online" enabled extras (in car MercedesBenz Browser, Apps, Internet Radio, Weather, etc.). Vodafone charge £10 for 1GB of data per month, and it the service they provide is only 3G UMTS. I signed up for a free 1 month trial, and it is safe to say the service is unusable. It takes ages for anything to open, if it opens at all. The video above is proof of that.

2. To add insult to injury, because the car has a modem builtin, the option to tether to your own phone and use the phone's internet connection has been removed. I have 40GB per month EE contract on my phone, with speeds up to 60Mbps but cannot use it.

3. Many of the online features just hang, crash or just don't work. The browser works 1 in 10 times. The Internet Radio (when it decides to work) takes a good 30 seconds to connect then intermittently buffers throughout.

4. Comand Online is MirrorLink enabled, but has been disabled in my vehicle. Apparently, it can be reenabled by going into Engineering Mode (secret menu), but noone from Mercedes can help (so far at least).

5. MercedesBenz Link is a menu option on Command Online, right under MercedesBenz Apps, but I cannot find anything to tell me what this is for or why it doesn't work. I contacted MercedesBenz HQ Customer Support and they didn't know what it was, they asked me to contact the dealer (which I had already done).

This is my opinion, a lot of what is above I wish I knew before spending a significant amount of money on these extras. Personally, I do not believe they are worth it.