mom I've told you before SUVs aren't just for people with kids anymore and no I don't know when I'm going to give you any grandchildren although my golden Doodle's kind of like a grand dog to you anyway anyway I got to go film this video in today's video I'm going to compare two of the most popular SUVs in the Lexus lineup the NX 350 versus the RX 350 and we'll go over some of the things I've learned about these two vehicles over the last few years years but before we get into today's video I'm going to draw a name for our contest about if you can find me on Instagram and comment RX 350 on one of my photos and the winner today is going to get a Lexus package sent to them by me with some good Lexus swag so today's winner and it's an Instagram name is Clint C 2679 Clint thank you for your continued support I see you in the comment section and on Instagram all the time and I'm going to be sending you some nice Lexus swag so thank [Music] you okay getting right to some of the styling parts of these two vehicles and yes in this video I'm going to teach you what I like most about each one and what I don't like so let's look at these front grills so on the NX we have a very straight up and down down grill with not much tapering to it or anything like that and we have the classic sort of trim surrounding that fport Grill because of it being fport it's also painted black it's like a piano black around this Grill and it's the fsport hatching with the Lexus emblem right in the center the plate bracket because we're here in Canada a and then a little bit of trim towards the bottom here on each side we have actual venting it's not fake venting people because it's an fport uh and it's again kind of creates the same shape and angles as that that Grill but just off to the side there in comparison to the RX you'll notice the front end is very different on the RX where we have this nose piece and here's one of the things that Dustin Dustin goes back and forth with all the time in fact when it comes to the front grills of both these vehicles I think I prefer the NX because it's just bigger and seems more aggressive and it's one of those things that when you see an RX on the road or an NX on the road it actually makes the RX look bigger because of the grill and the nose piece here on the RX actually makes the vehicle look smaller from the front now there is some other things to think about yes it does and it kind of looks like it was an afterthought sometimes uh the more I get used to it uh but I do also think it's part of the EV generational thing that was going on when this car was designed what I mean by that is back when this car was being designed designed we really thought EV was going to be the market so we saw some design language on things like the Audi erron or the BMW e-classes e-classes it's not an E-class you know what I mean the electronic electronic BMWs and grills on those cars are sort of just like decoration like they're sort of fake and and not really for air intake cuz you don't need an air intake and this grill or the top of this Grill sort of copied some of that design language so that's why I think it's but the rest of the nose piece is bigger like the the body lines on the RX are prominent and even though that nose piece kind of makes it look like it's got a little snoot or snout the rest of the front end has some presence to it we're on the NX that little baby snoot is a little bit smaller of a body panel and still has some angulars to things like the daytime running lights which on the NX are above the headlight so we have the LED headlight below the daytime running light and then the running light on top with a little bit of like I don't know a decorative shelf top piece that's not really doing anything on the top of that headlight on the RX we have an even more frosted daytime running light and it's actually below those headlights however because the headlight casing has some other stuff going on it's more like it's in the middle of the headlight casing but below the actual headlights themselves like the the LED headlights and this one has the triple beam system so it's a little bit fancier anyway okay back to the RX Grill we have the washer lights some venting on the sides and actually this one it's less of an actual intake than the NX but we have some curb lamps some different colors in the grill because it's the luxury version we have some some pearlescent Grays and things like that um and overall standing next to them the RX Hood especially seems a lot bigger than the NX Hood the NX has a Vision Line where it sort of swoops around and the RX is prominent to that Snoop piece and I want you to remember even though the hood on the RX looks a lot bigger than the NX underneath that hood is pretty much the exact same thing as underneath the NX some people might even say it's exactly the same thing because they both have a turbocharged 4cylinder powertrain the same 4-cylinder turbocharged powertrain okay so sitting on the side I'm not sitting I'm standing standing on the side of the NX and the RX now we're going to see some differences in fact if you could tell the difference on the front of the vehicle when you're driving on the road when you see the side it's going to be a big difference let's talk about some similarities so they both have the electronic door latch which I absolutely love and it's not just getting into the car that I love it's the exiting the car that's really the part of the electronic door handle that I like the most because you sort of just press the button and move out in one smooth motion instead of like using your elbow to like open it and stuff like that uh but as you just heard the door of the NX super super solid even though it's a smaller vehicle it has a very satisfying clunk I guess you can say to it we do have a body line going right in line with the door handle and then it sort of Fades up or it sort of like takes off like an airplane would all about airplanes lately uh towards that re quarter panel this one being the sport we have a black out mirror cap and because of that also the top of the door handle is blacked out and we have a ginormous gigantic 20-in fport wheel and I like that this fport wheel is actually fully black it's a gloss black but it's not matte or anything like that so it's really shiny I think it's easy to keep clean and it has the alenza tires on it you'll notice that the there is body color on the fender flares where it used to be like a textured material both the NX and the RX have that however at the bottom of both doors we still have the textured material which I don't hate I think that's a great thing and standing next to it at 6'1 you'll see my height versus it so I can see the roof and I Could Touch the sunroof if I wanted to I do like that the NX is blacked out so we got sort of like a blacked out Chrome it's not even smoked it's blacked out around those two windows with a black B pillar and this tiny little this tiny little window in the back it's like a quarter glass or something like that and then we see the rear start to come to us on this quarter panel here it's a small quarter panel but we see some sort of like body line starting to unfold to to give us a hint at what's behind but let's go over to the RX so we have a slightly bigger wheel on a Bridgestone tire it's 21 in on this package the body color that I talked about the door handles that I talked about on the NX are the same the doors are just a little bit bigger so we have a slightly bigger but equally as solid and the same sound of clunk I guess we could say uh on that side doors now the Body Lines themselves we have more of a subtle body line above the door handle that again takes off as we get to the rear of it and then we have this very Sleek indentation on the bottom of the front door and the rear door the reason this is important to pay attention to is whenever we see some drastic Body Lines shift and move like that it's a luxur vehicle you won't see a cheap vehicle have you know Big Body Lines or big curvy lines in the middle of a door like that because it does take some engineering to do so at the bottom we have that textured plastic and I want you to pay attention to even just the silhouette of the RX itself yes it is taller like I'm 6'1 I can touch the sunroof but I can't see most of the roof and it it almost gets bigger as it get goes to the rear and then it kind of tapers off in a very sleek and stylish way and also the way that the windows look will see we have a quarter glass that swoops very stylishly love using that word towards the rear of the vehicle there's some Chrome this is Chrome we have some Chrome that is above the window below the window a little bit on the mirror caps surprisingly not on the door handles we still have that black door handle cap but you'll see it's a little bit more drawn out the side of that RX a little bit wavier and I would say not as sharp of lines it's more curvy than it is sharp but let's get to the rear of the vehicle okay so the back of the RX you've heard me talk about literally a thousand times if you've been watching this channel but it is my favorite rear end in the Lexus lineup so we have this tail that goes underneath the very Sleek Le xus emblem and just the Angles and shapes and curves of the of the trunk is really attractive so we have this angled rear glass with a hidden wiper blade tucked up under that rear visor it's one of the only lexuses that do that at the back we have hidden exhaust and a little bit of plastic painted and then plastic again for that rear diffuser cover thing and then just our little RX 350 off to the side but let's look inside and this is going to be a big consideration if you're looking at the RX versus the NX the reason I say that is they're both really approachable Heights for loading and taking things out loading and unloading someone would say and on this RX we see a really wide footprint it comes with the cargo net and it comes with the tunnel cover standard from the dealership although if you lose that tunnel cover let's just say don't lose it cuz it's pretty expensive to replace so if you're going to take it out make sure you know where you put it cuz if I'm going to appraise your trade you got to have that in there cuz it's worth a lot of money and then because of that angular glass rear hatch you'll notice this line here does create a little bit of a shallow stack the further you go back in the trunk but the more forward you go in the trunk it is tall and you could fold down those rear seats by the touch of a button and I have a few buttons off to the side there that I can do that with we could very handily cover over that rear trunk space and just with one finger lift up on it and it'll retract so a very wide footprint not very tall towards the back but still very very useful over to the rear of the NX we have the same but different tail lights and it's different because it's actually three pieces so we have that classic L off to the sides and then the katana above the Lexus and it's that same Lexus the cool thing about the katana piece is just what I nicknamed it I don't know if that's real is the three-dimensional aspect of it and this is something the NX has always done a great job of of having a really nice back end or tail light uh and the red is very clear the diffusion is really crisp so forth and so forth down as we get lower we have a diffuser a hidden exhaust as well as some color here it's all plastic it's like that soft texture plastic really cool thing about that is it's cheap to replace so if you do have stone chips or scrapes or scratches that textured piece you don't have to repaint which is nice then we have a little bit of a bumper cover here the NX 350 off to the side and of course course we have the exposed wiper which you probably already noticed when we walked up to it but let's look at the inside of the NX so back here we do have a similar height for loading in and out of things from the RX however there's less of an angle so as you put things back to the back of the trunk yes it still has a little bit of an angle at the top but you won't lose as much height as you were in the RX it is noticeably skinnier back here so it's not as wide of a footprint and you'll notice things like this is your tunnel cover so instead of the one that sort of retracts this one's a foldable piece now because of it being foldable you can just put it under the rear floor there's like a spot for it under there and when you think about it it's just to block people from like looking in and seeing what type of you know groceries you have back there or whatever maybe your trip to Best Buy you got you know some electronics that you want to hide and it doesn't matter the quality of the tunnel cover at that point however if I was comparing the quality this one definitely feels a little bit cheaper because that that one that rolls out feels like leather and like feels heavier Duty so that's that still has the net still has some storage space off to the side you can still fold down those seats although it's 6040 in the NX on the RX it's like 60 2020 where you can like customize what is the 60 and what is the 40 so definitely something to keep in mind still very usable space no one's ever been really disappointed in the NX for space that I've heard of anyway okay sitting in the NX 350 I definitely feel sporty and this is a sport package so don't get me wrong but what I mean by that is there's no need for anything else in here right we have the screen very close and facing me I have heads up display in this one everything is what it needs to be without a whole lot of anything else going on it's a little bit smaller than the RX for sure but don't forget the NX was originally based on the is platform meaning it was kind of like a car SUV a car UV I guess we could call it uh and we don't really sacrifice any amenities couple differences is we have our drive mode selector exposed and in the middle which is great so without having to really take your eye off the road you can switch between Sport Plus and Sport and comfort and Eco and normal and all these other things even in something like a Bas fport series 1 you get those types of features also the shifter is the new electronic shifter shifter which is in all the latest lexuses we have the armrest that opens up both ways the sport seats are amazing maybe taller people will say they wish the seats extended a little bit under their thighs a little bit more but for the most part anybody that's super tall I would recommend the rx2 anyway so this is like for that person that wants you know the sporty driving of a car but in the practicality of an SUV and you really don't have to sacrifice a ton of features like a fully loaded NX versus a fully loaded RX pretty much if you're going through a checklist they have all the same things everything from Mark levenson to auto park to heads up display to panel roof to Bird's eyee view to wireless charging the list goes on you can get pretty much them specked out the same but different because now when you look at the fit and finish the NX has a very different finish than the RX there's just less of those over-the-top details I guess you could say okay sitting in the RX it feels so different I mean when you're sitting in the front seat it feels so different so what I mean by that is yes this is more of a fully loaded one but we have things like ultra suede which is simply just there to make the interior feel more luxurious we have more of a layer Dash we have more wood grain we have more space in front of us it feels like I'm sitting on a couch instead of sitting on a bar stool now there's anything wrong with the bar stool but I mean the spacewise and like the posture wise and stuff like that I noticed between me and the front passenger it's a bigger Center Cil with more space and room for activities and luxury it has the same size armrest kind of which is interesting and we do have you know wireless chargers and the adjustable cup thing where goes up and down the NX doesn't have that and overall the interior of the RX just is that step up of luxury I would more compare this to the interior of like an LS or fulls size SUV than something of like you know a car or small SUV I do notice there is a feature that I forgot about that's only in the RX and not the NX and that is the driver monitoring system I don't think the NX has that or I I haven't noticed it in any of the packages where if you do look away and I'm checking out like a dog walking on the street or like you know if there's a cool car for sale on the side of the road and I'm looking at it the car might tell me to be like hey put your eyes back on the road so some people love that some people hate it I think it's cool and does a purpose also the sound system in the RX is very full I would say and that's just because I think it's a bigger in the shape of it and things like that uh but it is really hard to compare that because it is subjective for sure um but overall like I said that front seat it's just very spacious and the drive of it says a similar story as well but let's check with the the rear seats cuz that's really what a big difference is on these two cars okay so sitting in the back of the RX and starting with the rear seats here there is a lot and I mean by that is this is a a size of back seat that you could be the passenger back here or like I could even own the car and want to sit back here we have a ginormous armrest that has cup holders and a storage spot I'm not sure what anybody stores in their back seat but maybe their kids do and that folds up and down quite easily this particular package has heated and cool seats back here but you know some of the fully loaded nxs have that too little pocket map we have curtains that go up and down manually of of course but they're still back here and even the door panel even though it's the rear seat we still see things like the ultra suede and the mark Levon sound system and things like that and this just screams midsize to up level upper level luxury this is one that I could sit in the back seat for a long car ride with two other friends and still be comfortable I mean one other friend would be the most comfortable but someone could definitely fit back here the seat itself has a lot of substance to it it goes under my thighs like I would say even sitting here the RX probably goes further up my thighs than the NX front seats do so that just shows you just the sheer space of it and it makes sense why this the trunk on the RX isn't bigger than it is it's because the designers definitely wanted to give that rear seat the same luxury feel as the front and they did a really good job so sitting in the back of the NX now even right away that rear support under the legs and the posture of the legs is very different like we have more of a straight up and down angle because of there's just less subsidence here in the back seat um and of course because of that that front seat is a little bit closer to me the roof seems a little bit closer to me we still have things like the armrest it's just not as big or have as many features in it so that's totally fine some of these higher packages still have things like heated seats back here etc etc it's just a little tighter it's almost like the opposite of what we saw in the RX it gave the NX so much space up front that it did take away a little bit from this second row because Lexus figured the buyer for this probably isn't going to have passengers in the back all the time maybe just once in a while and because of that we can make it a little bit smaller so overall still good I could be on a a car ride with one other person for sure two other people for me would be almost a nogo cuz it'd be so tight back here but for what it is for compact SUV and that's what the segment is the small SUV segment it still has a decent amount of space that in a you drive some around back here for sure so this might beg the question and you might ask me Dustin which one would you choose or which one would you buy and the answer to me is the RX 350 and it mainly comes down to two reasons one is the styling of that rear end of the RX is so sleek and cool and high-end looking it's better than anything else in its class including the Porsche which I love the look of the Porsche otherwise the RX is better for that and also the interior I'm a little a little bit taller I love that extra space in the front end I love big luxury cars and the RX gives me big luxury car Vibes however the NX is a blast to drive anytime I have an NX as a demo I find myself taking the long way home going down something that's a little bit Winder putting it in that Sport Plus mode and using that powertrain that's also used in the bigger RX in this tiny little hatchback almost and having some fun with it it's more of that sporty Driving Experience when after all the n is for nimble and that's a great way to think of these two vehicles the n is for nimble the r is for radiant the RX is a radiant luxurious ride and the NX is a Nimble fun ride so let me know in the comments below which one you would choose the RX over the NX and at the end of the day they're both a great choice especially in the hybrid variants so I'm Dustin Mason thank you for watching this video and make sure you hit like And subscribe to see more Lexus related content [Music]