Inside, the Camry offers a welcome counterpoint to its exterior styling. While the outside has been touched with a splash of pizzazz, the inside has been brushed with shades of elegance. The treatment is not quite up to, say, Lexus-level luxury, but, especially in the top-of-the-line XLE, this Camry raises the bar on interior polish for mid-price, mid-size sedans.
The cabin is trimmed with a brushed metallic finish in the CE, LE, SE, and Hybrid. Real-looking glossy wood grain is used inside the XLE, including surrounds for the door-release handles. The fabric upholstery combines breathable, waffle-texture insets with smooth bolsters and backing. The leather upgrade isn't quite kid glove, but it feels expensive. On the less positive side, the hard plastic covering the roof pillars looks cheap, and the mouse fur headliner disappoints.
Today's midsize sedans are roomy vehicles, yet the feeling of roominess in the Camry is tempered by direct comparisons with the competition. In headroom, for instance, the Camry matches the Ford Fusion, but trails the Honda Accord and Hyundai Sonata by almost an inch and a half in front. Camry loses to all four in front-seat legroom. It's mid-pack in hip room, and near the top in rear legroom. The seats are comfortable front and rear, though the seat bottoms are short on thigh support for taller occupants. Rear-seat passengers in the XLE enjoy a luxury rarely seen in this class: reclining seatbacks.
The sloping hood delivers good sightlines from the driver's seat. The thick C-pillar, or that part of the body supporting the roof behind the rear doors, looks less imposing to the driver than from outside the car. Low-profile rear-seat head restraints leave the view in the rearview mirror mostly unblocked. Outside mirrors are placed farther rearward than we'd like, forcing us to physically turn the head for quick checks instead of just glancing sideways.
Almost everything inside the Camry speaks refined function. The speedometer and tachometer are large, circular and easy to scan, save for brief periods at dusk and under certain types of street lighting, when the luminescent instruments on all but the SE can wash out. Those in the SE, which are black on white with sharp blue-ish backlighting, avoid this eye-straining fade. They're part of this sporty model's unique interior treatment, which features dark charcoal or Ash gray hues and a grippy leather-wrapped, three-spoke steering wheel.
The window switches are clustered nicely on the driver's door armrest, just below the mirror switch and door lock, so they sit right where the hand rests when the driver sets forearm on the door. However, only the driver's window switch is lit at night, and it's not very bright. That means the other switches in the cluster, including the locks and mirrors, must be located by touch when it's dark, rather than by sight.
Controls for audio and air conditioning are easily manageable, clearly labeled and logically positioned in the center stack, with audio above and climate below. The pastel blue-green lighting around the optional navigation system reminds us of Miami Beach, and we love the separate on/off switches for the audio and navigation systems. The dual switches are a departure from most other vehicles today, which have a single on/off switch. So if you want the nav but no audio, you have to crank the volume all the way down, and still run the risk of picking up interference.
The cabin offers lots of usable cubbies for storing things. Cup holders and assorted nooks and covered bins are located conveniently about the center stack and console. A large glove box spans the lower dash between the center stack and passenger door. Only the front doors get map pockets, which are fixed, hard plastic that allows most everything stored there to slide. A similar material forms the magazine pouches on the back of the front seatbacks. A covered storage bin in the fold-down center rear armrest doubles as cup holders for rear passengers. On the SE and XLE, it also conceals a pass-through to the trunk. The SE offers only this pass-through, rather than the folding rear seat on other models, thanks to an extra brace behind the seat the stiffens the body for sporty handling.
Trunk space is adequate. Compared to the competition, Camry's maximum trunk space of 15 cubic feet trails all but the Accord. The XLE's reclining back seats exact a slight penalty in trunk space, dropping it 0.5 cubic feet compared to other models. The Camry Hybrid takes an even bigger hit, losing 4.3 cubic feet of trunk space to its battery. The Camry's trunk is fully finished, with a grocery hook, and utility box. The XLE comes with a luggage net that keeps cargo from sliding. There's no pull-down handle inside the trunk lid to spare fingers the grime and grit that can accumulate on exterior surfaces in winter.
