Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Group Buy Valentine One radar detector interest?

FWIW, go to www.speedzone.com or www.radartest.com. Both rate the Escort Passport 8500 as better. V1 is becoming outdated and is too much $$$$. Still a good detector though.

Check out V1's response to radartest.com at V1's site. radartest.com is biased, IMHO. I swear by my V1, it's never let me down. Once you get used to what all those lights are telling you, you'll wonder how you got by without them. My only complaint is that the band LEDs are all red and its hard to tell which tone you're getting at night at highway speed. My V1 has MORE than paid for itself in the four years I've owned it.

Sorry I already got it and tried the group buy too, no suck luck.
Maybe you can do something

How can you say it's outdated, when Valentine releases updates whenever necessary? The design may look the same, but there are all kinds of changes happening under the hood. They offer updates to your current detector for $150. As someone else posted, the test was a bit baised according to the Valentine crew, but I'd be happy to run down the highway with someone with the Cobra, and see how it works in the real life.

I have been living with my Passport 7500 for a couple years with great success.

Now I am thinking of upgrading to the 8500 just to have a new toy in the car to save my ass. I had a BEL before and it just stopped working one day, I am forever an Escort customer now. Perfect price, perfect detection!

I've never had the chance to compare my Passport 8500 to the V1, not knowing anyone local with a V1. It is a definite improvement over the older 7500, having a chance on a 150 mile trip to compare to another CEG'ers unit. I caught Ka signals that his never registered.

However, upon reading the Valentine's "rebuttal" to the radartest.com test, it seems to me to be more sour grapes than anything.

FWIW, the Passport 8500 is also upgradable/reprogrammable.

To me, the Passport 8500 is the best combination of performance, features, and price out there on the market.

I just bought a Cobra 9550. It works wonders for $160 - $20 rebate. Paid for itself already. I think that a $300 detector is overkill, this one works very well on the highway. At 60mph, I have a good 30 seconds until I can even see him when it goes off. And FWIW -- the Cobra is upgradable.

I'll still think a CB radio Is just as better as radar.

I also have the Cobra 9550. I paid $88 for mine though (I get employee discount) I think even if i paid the $160 for it, that it would still be more than worth it. False alarms are very obvious, and are not common. The range is incredible for the price, like TheContourGuy said before, I get about a 15-20 second warning at 80 mph. The only upgrade in radar detectors I would go for is a radar jammer, otherwise, I'm sticking to the cobra over the V1, its too expensive. Just my .02!
-Nick

I've seen/rode in/driven cars with all sorts of radar detectors and to me the best value for under $100 stuff is, Uniden. My friend got the new top of the line bel, whatever it was, expensive too, and I hate the damn thing. We live in a city and every 2 seconds it gets a false alarm, they are so common that you forget to pay attention to it, unless I can save up the $$ for a V1 I am sticking with my uniden :p
FWIW, Mike Valentine used to work for Cincinati Microwave (aka Escort/Passport)

Pete