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The best bit about the Q5 is the interior and general demeanour. Inside it feels well-made, solid and well-specced - all the launch cars in the UK will be of 'SE' spec, so there'll be no boggo, steel-wheeled monstrosity pounding the streets – and there have been some sensible and characterful upgrades to the MMI interface and the satnav.

Pop-up information windows on the full-colour screen are really very well animated, and the satnav now maps in 'proper' 3D, with landmarks drawn like a computer game. Seriously, you can count the windows in the Houses of Parliament. There’s also the usual iPod/mp3-player docks, and a card-reader in the dash, as well as a DVD-capable screen that's standard – you won't get a big screen-shaped hole in any cheaper variant.

The dials and general ergonomics are spot-on, and there's that nicely weighted feel and tactility that is generally referred to as 'premium'. Basically, it all works like you think it should; nothing snaps off and someone thought to damp things you touch, or cover them in expensive-feeling materials.

Underneath, it could be made of Play-Doh, but the interior tells you it's not, so you believe that all the bits you can't see are as sorted. Even the general size feels about right, and the ride height feels high enough to be interesting and advantageous, but low enough not to feel like you're helming a cruise liner from the poop deck.

It even punts along with a surprising turn of speed and fluidity. The smaller engines make the best fist of the Q5 - if you're going to go for a big engine, you might as well have the Q7 and add the space. Indeed, according to Audi, the 2.0-TDi will make up 77 per cent of all Q5 orders in the UK. Which is no bad thing really. Every model is certainly more accomplished than a Land Rover Freelander 2 HSE, though the Landy would eat the Q5 for breakfast off-road, confirming the disconcerting feeling that this really is a baby Q7.

So that means well-sorted, but heavy-feeling in the lower third, the car equivalent of a Weeble, or one of those lifeboats that self-right. The only problem I can see is that where the Q7 makes a huge statement by virtue of being, well, huge, the Q5 isn't actually all that striking. It's handsome enough, and dressed in the optional 20-inch rims, or the inevitable ‘S-Line’ sports kit, it looks perfectly acceptable, but it doesn't quite have the impact of its big brother or the delicacy of something noticeably smaller.

There's an appeal here, though, Audi giving customers even less reason to devolve themselves away from the brand into something that suits their more specific niche requirements. It's a good, if slightly predictable response to the small premium SUV market. It hasn't got any major bugbears, but similarly, it won't light too many fires.

It's one of Audi's solid-but-strangely-unremarkable products, the ones where it becomes increasingly difficult to pick fault, but there's a defined lack of character to fill in the gaps. Audi probably knows that, hence the predilection for exciting words in all the press material. Somehow I think that Audi doth protest a little too much. Good car, but don't believe the hype.