Is There Substance Behind Its New Style?

Its replacement doesn’t have some silly branded name and lives in a smaller screen that’s powered by a Snapdragon processor. The screen is clear and easy to read from afar, the UI responds immediately to inputs and the many camera views are now rendered in a much higher resolution.

The goodness doesn’t end there. Joy of joys, Subaru has also brought back physical controls for the climate settings. There’s a real button for everything, and it makes learning and using the system without taking your eyes off the road a million times easier.

It’s more expensive for a reason

For 2026, the Outback no longer has a base trim; everything starts with the Premium model, which is priced from $36,445. Yes, that’s around $4,000 more than before, but the Premium trim gets stuff like blind-spot monitoring, keyless access, the much-improved center display, and the digital gauge cluster as standard. Limited and Touring models start at $43,165 and $47,240 — going for the turbocharged engine on either adds another $3,600 to the price.

Because the Outback has to do pretty much everything, Subaru had to make the new one better everywhere. Thankfully, that’s exactly what’s happened. It’s the right size, easier to live with than ever before, and all of the last car’s issues (namely the tech, the lack of refinement, and ponderous handling) have been consigned to the history books.