Land Rover is an iconic luxury brand that offers compelling and capable vehicles, but their premium price tags can be enough to turn off even the most hopeful buyer. Thankfully, the brand offers a few entry-level models that bring much of its vaunted off-road ruggedness at a lower price. The Discovery Sport is a smaller, kinder Land Rover, but it’s still rugged and surprisingly capable off-road.

Compared with competitors such as the Porsche Macan, BMW X3, and Audi Q5, the Discovery Sport is far stronger when the pavement ends, despite those models’ all-wheel drive and powerful available engines. That said, Land Rover is a luxury brand, and its buyers expect to receive a class-beating vehicle, which the “Disco Sport” just doesn’t pull off. It’s not as plush inside as the Audi and nowhere near as engaging to drive as the Porsche or the BMW, so there are tradeoffs to the off-road ability.

A turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine comes standard. It produces 246 horsepower and comes paired with a nine-speed automatic transmission. All-wheel drive is standard, along with terrain modes for handling various off-road scenarios. Towing comes in at a healthy 4,409 pounds, and the Discovery Sport is rated to wade up to 23.6 inches of water.

Land Rover translated much of the Discovery Sport’s interior from its larger and more expensive models, which means a clean, modern design with nice materials throughout. The SUV comes with synthetic leather, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and heated front seats as standard equipment. Leather upholstery is available, and there’s an option to add one of the segment’s few third-row seats. It’s an extremely tight seat, to be fair, but the upside is that the Discovery Sport offers solid cargo room when it’s folded flat. The space measures 28 cubic feet, which is better than some in its segment.

Most driver aids are reserved for the more expensive SE trim, but the base S comes with traffic sign recognition, adaptive speed limiting, and adaptive cruise control. The SE model adds Land Rover’s Driver Assistance Pack, which brings a 360-degree camera system, parking assist, safe exit monitoring, automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warnings, lane-keep assist, traffic-sign recognition, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, and rear cross-traffic alerts. The Discovery Sport has not been crash-tested due to Land Rover’s low production volume and the relative expense of crashing high-end vehicles.

The 2023 Land Rover Discovery Sport S starts at $44,600 before taxes, fees, and destination. The SE trim starts at $48,200, and stepping all the way up to the Sport R-Dynamic SE pushes the price to $50,000. It’s important to note that Land Rover offers several added-cost upgrades for the SUV, including a $1,650 third-row seat option, a $1,150 interior upgrade package, and a $625 cold weather package.