Took one for a quick test drive today and didn't miss the armrest. It was the mid level GS and a fun drive. Here's the 30 second road test summary- power was fine (adequate) but nothing more, transmission and how it worked with the engine was so-so (it had a sport mode but not particularly pleasant) as it seemed slow to upshift/downshift and it intruded into the driving experience, Toyota does a much better job mating engine/transmission. Handling however was exceptional and definitely one of THE strong points of the car - great fun. Tried starts on some gravel surface and the AWD worked seamlessly.
Interior was very nice indeed , some touches of red and pleasant surfaces, good seating position plus all controls readily at hand. The touch display worked fine and easy to learn (much better than the Dodge Charger rental that I recently drove ) and even sight lines were reasonable. A couple of weakness one was I didn't see any storage cubby holes other than the cupholders and glovebox and secondly was the bar type tachometer to the left of the center speedo- definitely hard to read (the GT fixes this by putting the tach front and center). Back seats were a bit tight but this is a compact SUV so nothing unexpected and the dual level storage in the rear was a nice touch.
Did I mention how well it handled?
