Finding myself with enough money to afford it, I decided to get more upscale with my newest car purchase to replace my aging 1997 Nissan Maxima. Several close family members owned Lexuses (or should that plural be "Lexi"?) and had nothing but good experiences with the cars and the dealers. It so happened that the brand new, massively redesigned, 2007 ES 350 was introduced pretty much simultaneously with the timeframe when I wished to purchase such a car, so I went into the local Lexus dealer the first weekend it was in stock; originally just to check it out and give it a test drive, but I got talked into making the purchase right then and there... I guess the salesman was pretty effective. I know that purchasing a brand new model like that in its first week of availability isn't necessarily the best financial decision -- people are getting better deals on it even now just a few weeks later -- but you only live once. Having the latest model before everybody else feels nice. I still haven't observed any other ES 350s on the road outside of the Lexus dealer itself, other than one in a mall parking lot, though my area is full of Lexuses (...then again, if it's in the same Latin declension class as "opus / opera", perhaps the plural should be "Lexera"?).

Anyway, what attracted me to this new model (even before its massive ad campaign began; at the time I bought it I still had heard of it only through the Internet and the dealer, but since then it's been all over prime-time TV) was that it seemed like a gadget freak's dream car. It had everything: Keyless entry and ignition; GPS navigation; parking-assist radar sensors warning of nearby objects; backup camera to let me see nearby objects; headlights that swivel to the side to follow the direction you're steering; headlights and wipers that turn on automatically on sensing darkness and rain respectively; seats adjustable in lots of different directions with the ability to store two sets of positions (along with the position of the mirrors and steering wheel) for later retrieval (and even tie a particular set of adjustments to each one of the two keys, great if you have two drivers using the car); ventilated seats with both heating and cooling; Bluetooth cell phone integration; audio system with an input jack to let me play my iPod through it... those are just a few of the many high-tech features it has. Some of them are optional extras that add to its price, but I had to have them anyway. In some cases, these features were released first on higher-priced Lexuses (...given that "Lexus" is, in fact, a marketing name devised in the late 1980s by a Japanese car company, and lacks any genuine Classical Latin pedigree, I'd better stick to a standard English plural ending, since I sure as heck don't know how to properly pluralize it in Japanese!), but are now available in this "entry-level" model.

The transmission of the ES 350 is described in its official spec sheet as "Electronically Controlled Transmission with intelligence". That last part, "with intelligence", describes lots of things about this car. One might even be tempted to say something like, "This car is smarter than I am!", but I, for one, will resist doing this -- being a member of Mensa and all, I'll try to avoid such self-deprecating jabs at my own smarts. However, the ES 350 has a good deal of built-in artificial intelligence, with a computer brain implementing logic that affects everything from steering to braking to acceleration to transmission, all designed to do what the driver wants with a maximum of graceful smoothness. If you're a science-fiction buff as I am, you might decide that cars have reached the point where they should perhaps be equipped with an implementation of Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics. This one is almost there:

1) A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

The ES 350 attempts to implement this via its many safety features, including airbags all over the place (Driver's front, side, side curtain, knee; same for passenger; and side and side curtain for rear-seat passenger) and (as one of the few available options I didn't get in mine) a "pre-collision" feature that senses it's going to crash and takes actions to protect the occupants further.

2) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

When it's not acting automatically to preserve your safety, most of the ES 350's intelligence is focused on smoothly, efficiently doing what the driver wants. Granted, this sometimes involves a bit of "Do what I mean, not what I say"; for instance, the brake-assist logic senses what you seem to be attempting to do (such as slamming on the brakes to stop short) as well as the conditions the car is facing, and then do what you really ought to be doing -- giving maximum braking power even if you were too wimpy about it, but distributing it carefully to preserve traction even on slippery roads. The result is that, when you hit the brakes rapidly in a panic when you see somebody stopped ahead of you (almost too late) while driving in the pouring rain -- something that's actually happened to me since buying this car, perhaps a sign of what sort of a driver I am which I'd be better off if my insurance company didn't know -- you come to a rapid non-skidding stop, and the Lexus even does its best to preserve its characteristic smoothness while it's doing so, making it not quite so bone-jarring as it might be in a different car. So, though I often dislike "second-guessing" when done by software trying to interpret what it thinks I really mean instead of what I actually told it, it can be useful in cars. On the other hand, I can just imagine what would happen if Microsoft ever started making cars; perhaps they'd pop up a little animated paperclip that asks "You seem to be slamming on the brakes. Are you attempting to come to a rapid stop?"

Also on the subject of obeying orders, the navigation system has a built-in voice command capability that understands a number of spoken words, and lets you program in voice commands for the phone numbers in your address book for use in making cell calls through the Bluetooth feature.

A full implementation of the first/second-law interaction, however, would involve the car actually refusing to steer, accelerate, or brake in situations where it determines that this will lead to a harmful collision; if you steered such a car into a brick wall, it would ignore you and steer away. They haven't quite built a car like that yet, but it's probably coming eventually.

3) A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The parking-assist and rear camera features, which guard against running the car into objects such as parking-garage columns, act to help the car preserve itself, as do the various anti-theft features. (Though, I suppose a true Second Law implementation would let a car thief order the car to turn off its alarms, unlock itself, and let the thief drive off; it's supposed to obey orders of all humans, after all.) Something it could use, but doesn't yet have, would be some sort of anti-vandalism guard where the car can take evasive action against anybody trying to deface it; my ES 350 has an ugly scratch on its back apparently put there by somebody while it was parked overnight. It's only a cosmetic flaw, but still an annoying thing to happen to a new car, especially a fancy, expensive one. There'd be too much legal liability problem with a car electrocuting vandals (and it would be against the First Law of Robotics anyway), but maybe it could use the built-in camera to photograph the vandal caught in the act.

Anyway, enough with the sci-fi, and on with the description of this car. I've got some more to say about its high-tech features, but first let's get to the basics: how does it drive? Some wag out there might ask, how do I drive? I'll refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me, and go on with describing the car.

The overall driving experience can best be described as "smooth", a word I've used several times already, but generally the best for describing how it feels. Driving the ES 350 has a "liquid" feel, like you're gliding pleasantly. Some other reviewers here, writing about other Lexus models, claimed that you were made completely oblivious to all the bumps in the road; I can't speak for the other models which I haven't driven, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that about the ES 350; you can feel whether the road is smooth or rocky, or whether you're going over cobblestones or speed bumps. Lexus doesn't quite shield you from every last bit of this. However, it does keep things from being annoyingly bumpy, and manages to steer, accelerate, decelerate, and brake with very little roughness... even with me driving! It's also quiet: some experimentation showed that the seat-ventilation system, when turned on in cooling mode, actually makes more noise than the idling engine does.

All of this gets to the bottom of what it is that makes some car enthusiasts dislike Lexus; sports-car and hot-rod buffs want to feel the road beneath them, and generally experience a lot of noise and commotion so that they can tell what a powerful machine they're controlling. Lexus cars, on the other hand, take an opposite tack and try to give you the most pleasantly comfortable experience they can give you while you make your way to your destination. As a result, car buffs often sneer at Lexus as "the car that boring old people drive", a title this brand seems to have taken from Cadillac, which reigned over this market segment for decades. Well, maybe, at the age of 42, I'm now officially a "boring old person"; after all, I do live in south Florida, which is their native habitat. (But I've known plenty of older people, even in Florida, who are far from boring!)

In fact, though, Lexus has a much more varied demographic than they did when they launched the brand; their line has broadened to include everything from SUVs to sports cars. Within this line, the redesigned ES has managed to position itself as the logical choice for a wide range of buyers; it's more practical than the sports car, more sporty than the SUVs, and less pricey than the other Lexus sedans, while still retaining many of the same advanced features. The engine of the ES 350, a 3.5 liter V6, gets more horsepower than the 3.3 liter engine of the predecessor ES 330 (the "350" represents the 3.5 liters, so that, metrically speaking, each unit of a Lexus model number corresponds to one centiliter), so it's an engine that perhaps wishes it were in a sports car. Supposedly, it can get from 0 to 60 mph in 6.8 seconds, though I wasn't about to go fumbling with a stopwatch while accelerating in order to check this claim. The official miles-per-gallon figure is a very respectable 21 in the city and 30 on the highway, though so far in my (mostly short-range local) driving I haven't managed to get out of the 15-20 mpg range (you can helpfully see a display of your recent mileage figures on the dashboard). Filling up the gas tank these days costs me over $40 each time, enough to give sticker shock even to people who can afford a Lexus. I'll have to see how well it does on my first long-range highway trip this summer. Anyway, for a car of decent size such as this, it's got some pretty respectable mileage numbers (though it seems so far to be better in theory than in practice).

The transmission is six-speed automatic, one more speed than the previous year's five-speed model. (But the bike I had as a kid had ten speeds... does that make it better than a Lexus?) Some super-expensive cars, like from Mercedes, have seven speeds, but six should be plenty. In addition to the normal automatic-transmission gear positions, there's a "semi-automatic" mode where you can set it from 1 through 6 to limit which gears it goes into. When I was first getting used to the car, I put it in that mode by mistake a couple of times, and could tell the engine wasn't very happy about it; it's better to just let the automatic transmission take over and set gears as it wishes.

There have been some reports of transmission problems with earlier Lexus ES models, as well as with the 2007 Toyota Camry (which has some parts in common with the ES 350). Hopefully, none of this affects this model, though it's still too new to have much of a track record reliability-wise.

Getting back to the demographics of car buyers, I need to address the issue that seems to be prominent in the minds of many red-blooded males: is this a "chick car"? This concept even comes up in kids' TV shows these days; I was watching a show recently on the Disney Channel and it featured a young man in an advanced state of teen angst over whether the used car he had just purchased was of a sort more suitable for the fairer sex. It's part of the complex set of social and cultural roles cars play in today's society that a male driver is expected to have a car that attracts the "chicks", but doesn't give off any effeminacy itself. Given that early Lexus ES models were in fact marketed largely at a female audience, this is something one might be concerned about, though if you're confident in your manhood you won't care so much what others might think. The new model, however, doesn't really give off unmanly airs (though you might want to stay away from the Royal Ruby red color; and, is it my imagination, or does the Crystal White have just a hint of pinkness to it?), and Lexus has been careful to advertise it in a way that gives no demographic prejudice; their TV spots show no visible humans at all (just the car, and sometimes some robots), so you aren't given even a subliminal suggestion of what sex, age, or race of person might be driving it. While earlier ES models were apparently not roomy enough inside to be comfortable for people with larger-than-petite bodies, the new one seems comfortable enough, though some (apparently stockier than myself) still apparently complain that it's too small. I suppose liking comfort might be viewed as "feminine" by some (as stereotyped in the fairy tale with the princess feeling a pea beneath multiple mattresses; if it were a prince, he'd be too busy making his way through dangerous forests looking for dragons to slay to care about such petty things); I'll just have to live with that. Anyway, people I know, both male and female, seem to like the car. The car itself seems to be female -- its navigation system has a feminine voice, and the marketing for it emphasizes its graceful curves.

Another thing Lexus cars have been criticized for, believe it or not, is that they're too inexpensive! It was mostly European aristocrats making this criticism, back when the Lexus brand was first introduced. They were already miffed that a Japanese car company (Lexus is a division of Toyota) would dare move into the luxury car market at all, when it belonged by divine right to European manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz. But the fact that Lexus models were priced much lower than the traditional upper-crust cars of the time really offended them; why, commoners might actually be able to afford them! As Ford took cars in general from luxury items to things for the masses with the Model T, Lexus was now making the luxury tier of cars more widely accessible than before. To the traditional old-rich, the point of a luxury car is not to have a car that's comfortable, well-engineered, reliable, and feature-loaded, for the pleasure and convenience of its owner; it's more important to show the world that you're better than everybody else, in a way the lower classes can't possibly imitate. The perfect car for them might be one that was horribly uncomfortable, broke down every couple of miles requiring a personal auto mechanic on constant call, required a full tank of gas every few blocks, and cost more than a working-class stiff would be expected to earn in a lifetime. As only an old-world nobleman would be crazy enough to buy such a thing, it's a perfect class marker.

Going against attitudes like that, Lexus has had some trouble catching on in the European market, but in the more democratic American market it has done quite well, and, in the classic free-market style, has spurred competitors such as Mercedes to broaden their lines to include more affordable offerings as well. Everybody is better off for this, and some "luxury" features have even "trickled down" to much more lower-priced car lines -- for instance, air bags started out as a luxury feature but are now standard across the board. This, in turn, means that luxury car makers must continue to innovate, coming up with even more advanced features, so that their cars can remain set apart from more "common" ones. Lexus has been good at this, and continues to maintain its dominance.

Now, as I promised, here's some more detail about the features.

Keyless Entry and Ignition: Cars have had various sorts of remote control devices for years; it's one of those "luxury" features that's managed by now to trickle down to relatively inexpensive models as well. This has spurred Lexus to one-up them by going entirely keyless. All you have to do is carry the electronic "key" somewhere within range of its sensors, and you can open the door just by grabbing the handle, and then start the car by pressing a button located where you would usually have to insert the key. There's no more fumbling for keys. (There's an actual mechanical key hidden inside the electronic unit for use in emergency situations when the key battery runs out.)

Just walking up next to the car is enough to get it to turn on some of its lights, as if it recognizes me. It's actually just the key it's recognizing, but it's still a pleasant feeling.

Navigation System: Another reviewer here, one I trust and respect, said of GPS navigation systems that they were useless; highways are equipped with road signs, aren't they? However, just try finding your way to an unfamiliar destination late at night, in the pouring rain, with poor visibility of the signs while you're paying attention to the road, driving alone with nobody to navigate for you in a neighborhood where you're not sure if it's safe to stop to ask directions or fumble in the glove compartment to see if you have a map of the area. I haven't actually been in such a situation since getting this car, but wouldn't a navigation system be useful if I did? (And even if it didn't have any practical use, I'd still want one... I'm a gadget freak, remember?)

Even in going to familiar places near where you live, which is pretty much all I've done so far, the navigation system can have its uses. Just for fun, I've started it up to direct me to places I already knew how to get to, and sometimes got useful hints out of it; the way I've always gone hasn't always been the shortest or fastest route, and the navigation system, free of emotion or preconceptions about "the way I've always done it", sometimes was able to suggest something better. It's not perfect, though; it doesn't know things like which roads are currently under construction or which ones get horribly congested at the current hour, so it's not always good to mindlessly follow its instructions. And sometimes it just gets weird; once, when directing me home, it told me to turn right a couple of blocks away from where I lived, into a street marked "Not a through street" which ended at an office building built right in the middle of where the street might have continued if the building weren't there. Apparently the navigator thought that the street actually did continue. However, even if it did, this was still a peculiar route to take given that the road I was already on continued straight home; why make an extra turn? Sometimes, too, the navigator's proposed routes involve making difficult left turns into heavy traffic, when an alternative route, just a block or so out of the way, avoids this difficulty; this sort of thing doesn't figure into the cold calculations based on distance and projected speed on major and minor roads.

If you ignore its proposed route and go a different way, whether on purpose or by mistake, it doesn't faze the system; it rapidly recalculates the route based on where you actually are. It's better in this regard than some navigation systems I've seen in other cars, which sometimes have long delays while they're re-plotting the route to take a change of plans into account; this one makes an instant shift where appropriate. Another useful feature is how it shows the number of miles to the destination and to the next turn; it's a helpful answer to the perennial travel question, "Are we there yet?"

It did, however, once show me at a position that was about a mile away from where I really was. Apparently the GPS data (which it gets from satellites put there by the United States military; they do questionable things like invade Iraq, but they've also given us neat stuff like GPS and the Internet) hiccupped a little and gave an incorrect reading. It corrected itself in a minute or so once I started moving.

The navigation information is contained on a DVD that I'm told is made available in an updated version every year, if you want to keep up-to-date. Unfortunately, I've also heard that such updates cost around $200, which seems like a rip-off. I guess once they've got a captive audience that obviously can afford expensive stuff (or they wouldn't have bought a Lexus in the first place), they make some attempt to milk them for some more money. If you drive mostly in places that aren't undergoing massive change, you can probably get by without an update; even a years-old navigation system will still get you most places OK (though if you enter a new subdivision, it might show you driving around in a blank space with no roads).

One final note: That warning and disclaimer screen that you've got to press "OK" on every time you start up the car, probably forced by Lexus' lawyers, is pretty annoying. It nags you to drive safely; yes, Mom. (Remember the old TV show, My Mother the Car?) The navigation system also makes a point of telling you to "make a legal U-turn" in situations where turning around is necessary; I guess they think I might make the illegal variety if not properly scolded.

Cruise Control: I haven't had much chance to go on the "open road" where this would come in handy, but the few times I've tried cruise control it worked OK. One of the few enhanced options for this model that I didn't get is the "adaptive cruise control" which uses radar to modify speed based on the car in front of you; this is the only option I didn't get that I regret not having; it sounds pretty neat. I just have normal cruise control, where you can set a speed and have it go consistently at that speed until you change or stop it; paying attention to the car in front of you is your own responsibility.

Sound System: I got the normal Lexus sound system, though a Mark Levinson system is available at an extra cost. Unlike the adaptive cruise control, I don't really regret not spending the extra bucks for this, since I probably wouldn't be able to hear the difference (not being a real audiophile). The normal system is pretty good anyway; it's got a 6 CD changer, AM/FM radio, tape deck (which they brought back in this model, even though they had eliminated it from some earlier Lexuses; apparently, enough people are still using such things as books on tape that they decided it had to be there), and finally an "Aux" jack for plugging in other devices such as iPods. As I mentioned in my recent iPod review, since getting a new iPod I have put the old one in the car, where it's handy as a source of music and podcasts to play on the car stereo. The center console has the audio jack and a power source built in so that you can keep the iPod in there where it's shielded from sunlight and from being seen by thieves. One disadvantage of this versus using the CD player (which can play home-burned MP3-collection CDs as well as commercial ones) is that while the Lexus can get sound from the iPod, it can't actually control it, so you have to reach into the console to push the iPod's controls (something I don't recommend doing while you're trying to drive), and it doesn't automatically pause when you're making or taking a phone call through the Bluetooth integration, as a CD does (it mutes the sound, but the iPod keeps going forward so you lose your place in whatever you are playing).

A few more notes about that central console; it's a nice place to keep the iPod, as noted, and it's got enough room for some other stuff (like the cases from the CDs you've put in the changer). However, it's a bit awkward getting at this stuff, as the top only opens out partway using hinges that open in a manner that looks nicely graceful and elegant, but only opens up a fairly narrow gap for reaching in and adding or removing items.

Climate Control: It's got dual climate control, like many cars these days, though I'm not sure if it's really capable of making the temperature different in two adjacent seats; it seems about as pointless as "no-smoking sections" that are just a couple of feet away from the smoking section. The seats themselves are ventilated and can be heated or cooled through controls that are independent of the regular climate control. Where I am in south Florida, the cooling gets much more use than the heating.

Bluetooth Integration: OK, I mentioned that, so I'd better explain what it is. Bluetooth is a protocol by which various devices can communicate with one another wirelessly, used primarily to connect cell phones to other things such as wireless earphones. In the Lexus, it is used to allow the car to recognize when a compatible phone is inside it, and let you make and receive phone calls entirely through the car's controls (such as a button on the steering wheel to pick up the phone, and the ability to use voice commands to tell it to call somebody in your address book). This is much more convenient and safe than fumbling with the phone while you're driving.

When I bought the car, my current cell phone wasn't Bluetooth-capable, but fortunately I was near the end of my two-year contract and could get a new phone at a discount from my current provider (Verizon). The new phone (a Motorola E815... I guess I need to review that too, now) works fine with the Lexus Bluetooth feature, at least for making and receiving calls; it does not support downloading the address book from the phone into the car, which apparently some other phones or service providers do. Apparently, the fault here is with Verizon, which locks down some features in the phones it sells, a really ridiculous thing. Sometimes this sort of thing is justified as an "anti-piracy" move, but since when is my address book their intellectual property? They just don't want their users using any sort of feature that doesn't give them revenue, it seems. Eventually they'll probably introduce some sort of "address-book portability" feature at a monthly fee, which they wouldn't be able to do if you could just use a function of the phone to do it for free without using their network.

One nitpicky issue to bring up is the lack of a good place to put the cell phone while you're driving. Not that any other car that I know of does either, but Lexus makes a point of taking care of little things like that; there's even a place inside the gas-cap door to tuck the cap while you're filling up, so it doesn't just dangle awkwardly as it does in inferior car models. But there's still no place to put the phone; well, I usually use the cup holder, but what if I've got an actual cup there? OK, there's a second cup holder there, but if there were two cups I'd be out of luck. I suppose the fact that cell phones (with or without belt clips attached) are of varying size and shape leads to the inability of car-makers to create neat cubbyholes for them to fit snugly into.

Parking Assist and Rear View Camera: Radar sensors at the car's corners warn of nearby objects to assist in parking; I haven't had the nerve to give it a good test by coming within inches of crashing into things on all sides, but it's succeeded in noticing too-close things on the few occasions they were present. It has, however, also given a few "false alarms" when it sensed something when nothing was there. I guess it takes a "better safe than sorry" approach and gives a warning when in doubt. I'm not sure what triggered it; I didn't even see a newspaper blowing around near its sensors. Another feature is the full-color backup camera showing what you're heading for when you back up; as with rear-view mirrors, objects in it are closer than they appear, so it takes some experience to properly judge what you see. You also need to look around (as the display nags you, another warning probably mandated by their lawyers) because something could be coming right at you from the side, and would not be visible in the narrow range of the camera until it was right behind you.

Appearance: The color of mine is what Lexus calls "Tungsten Pearl" -- they have cutesy marketing names for all their colors. I call it "silver". (Hi-yo, Silver, away!!!) The general appearance of the ES 350 is considerably redesigned from earlier ES models; past models looked basically like generic sedans, not much different from any number of models from several manufacturers. You had to look at the "L" logo to be sure it was a Lexus. The new one is much more distinctive in appearance, with what the Lexus marketing people refer to as "L Finesse". As I alluded to earlier, Lexus dominates the American luxury market more by appealing to a desire for comfort, reliability, and practicality than to ego and the desire for ostentatious status symbols; here in Boca Raton, where ego and status are ever-present, you generally see more Mercedes cars than Lexuses, given the high "snob-appeal" of Mercedes, though there are still a fair number of Lexuses. However, as Lexus maintains their high reputation, and increases their cars' visual distinctiveness, it's likely the "ego emissions" (to use a phrase mentioned in another car manufacturer's commercials) of a Lexus will increase over time. Hopefully, though, the connotations will still go towards implying that the owner has good taste in choosing a well-built car, rather than merely towards exposing him/her as a show-off.

Under the Hood: The inside of the ES 350's hood has an unprecedentedly boxed-up appearance, with nothing visible that resembles an auto part; all of that grungy stuff, like the engine, the battery, and so on, is neatly enclosed in various closed compartments. This gives off an impression of "No User-Serviceable Parts Inside", though in fact the car comes with a set of tools in the trunk, and the owner's manual does note a number of things that can be self-serviced if the owner cares to do so. In keeping with the general Lexus image, everything is aimed more at those who like neatness and comfort over those who like to tinker; that's fine with me, since I'm a computer geek, not a car geek! You're pretty much expected to leave it to the Lexus dealers to handle all the servicing.

Service and Warranty: Lexus cars have a nice warranty: 48 months or 50,000 miles for the basic warranty, and 72 months or 70,000 miles for the powertrain. There is also four years of 24-hour roadside assistance.

Unfortunately, I did have the need to take advantage of the warranty, within the first month. I started hearing a moaning sound when I first started moving, right after starting the car; it would go away after a minute or so and not come back for the rest of the trip. So, was my car haunted by Moaning Myrtle, from the Harry Potter series, and if so, why didn't she do something useful, like, say, giving me some clues about what happens in the upcoming seventh book, instead of just moaning all the time? I brought it to the dealer, and was fortunate in that they were able to get it to make the sound when they tested it; it's all too common with cars to have a sporadic noise that always goes away when you're trying to demonstrate it to a service person. If, for instance, a sound only happens right after a cold start, it might be hard to get the car to do it after the engine has warmed up during the drive to the dealer. But, anyway, once they reproduced it themselves, they figured out what was causing it: the brake rotors had been "not machined properly" (as they worded it in the service description). I guess even Lexus factories make mistakes once in a while. Fortunately, it was something they could fix; they took apart the relevant assembly, re-machined the rotors, and there hasn't been a peep or a moan from it since.

I waited around while they did this servicing, so I got to experience J. M. Lexus's (the dealer in Margate, Florida which proclaims itself the "world's largest Lexus dealer") customer lounge. Unlike the typical car-dealer waiting room -- cramped, crowded, with cheap plastic chairs, bad coffee, and outdated magazines (like a doctor's office, only less comfortable), this lounge, on the second floor of their service section, is huge and comfortable, with nice cozy chairs, computers with Internet connection (and a wireless network in case you brought your own laptop), and a free refreshment bar with several exotic coffee flavors, soft drinks, and cookies. They even gave me a gift certificate for lunch at a nearby restaurant. It's all nice and classy, just like the Lexus cars. But I still hope I don't have to see it much, other than the routine service schedule. They also offer free loaner cars in the event that a service job requires your car to stay there overnight.

The 5000-mile servicing is free, but after that they do get you; from what I've heard, Lexus routine service isn't cheap. However, with the warranty, you'll at least not be hit with unexpected additional charges if things go wrong within the first few years. And hopefully, given the reliability of a Lexus, you can keep on driving it for many years to come without big problems.

Speaking of servicing, the navigation-system screen has a feature to remind you of when various sorts of service is necessary; just input the date and/or mileage for each item (which you can look up in the owner's manual), and it will let you know when it's time to get the car serviced. Also, every time you start the car, it flashes a message saying "CHECK"... I guess that means I need to move my king... oops, no, it's not playing chess with me (despite its high intelligence), but doing a systems check. Checking exactly what I'm not sure, but presumably it's doing some kind of internal diagnostic to assess its own state of health so it can let me know when something needs to be attended to. It also keeps tabs on tire pressure, warning you if it drops below the expected range; with other cars, sometimes I'd have a tire develop a slow leak and not notice it until it was practically flat, but this car would give me some warning. It's nice to know that the car is attending to its own well-being; that's what the Third Law of Robotics demands!

All right... this review has gone on a while. But, then again, if I can write over 1000 words about a Kelly Clarkson CD, then if the length were to be proportional to the price of the thing I'm reviewing, I'd have to go at least novel-length with this one; maybe Encyclopedia Britannica-length. But I think I'll wrap it up now instead. In conclusion, the Lexus ES 350 isn't for everyone. If you want to feel the wind whipping through your hair as you noisily rev up your engine, you probably want a sporty convertible. If you need the snob appeal of a car nobody else can afford, then maybe you want a Mercedes, or even a Rolls-Royce. But for a nice, comfortable, smooth car that's classy without being overly pompous, and has all the features to please a gadget lover, the ES 350 might be for you.