I mounted my V1 right next to my rearview mirror, on the left side. I plan on running the power straight off the mirror, so make it look nice and clean.

Personally, I like my V1 a lot. I love the arrows on it, and wouldn't trade it for the world. There have been times, when it goes off on the freeway, and the arrow points behind me. Signal gets stronger and stronger. Then sure enough, a few minutes later a state trooper comes flying up behind me and passes me.

I also love the number read-out. One time there was a radar speed sign trailor sitting on the side of the street near my subdivision. (Long straight approach, with only one street light) It was there for a few days. Then one time on my way home from work, I was like, "Why is the number readout reading 3, instead of 1?". Same signal type, just different number. I was extra cautious. I then noticed 2 cops hiding in the school parking lot with all their lights off.

 

Did you put the V1 in L mode? Because it doesn't false alarm in that mode.

V1 is a much better detector period. EOD. I had both as well and the V1 picks up the police way way before I get to them. My friend has a X50 now, and one time we went on a cruise and I annouced cop! He didn't slow down because his didn't go off, till he was almost on top of the cop. He now wants a V1.

 

My dic* is bigger than yours which means my 8500 is better, hands down, EOD. This "which is better" is stupid, the discussion does not have to "go on" as the title implies. While we're at it, lets have a pissing contest over windows & linux, or intel & mac, or turbo & s/c... it's stupid... oh wait, it's stupid "IMHO"... which means I can't get flamed because I put "IMHO" which is like a get-out-of-flame-free card.

 

+1

 

Oh, and I'm all for dialog that creates a better understanding of a product so consumers can make a better choice... but hearing someone's "this happened to me, my V1 kicks a$$" or "this happened to me, so the 8500 is hands-down the best" is silly... it doesn't help anyone. So I'm not bashing useful dialog/dicussions.

I have a Cobra radar detector, I got it for $50.... it is much better than the 8500 and the V1 because it detected a cop that was sitting in a tree.

see?

 

I tried the L mode as well. The X50 is simply a better detector, period. EOD.

 

IMHO get out of flame free card, love it!!! You know IMHO, very funny

 

To bad in tests it falls behind the V1.

 

They're close enough... the real test is real-life useability. I was bout to throw my V1 out the window.

 

Yes and I drive 100 miles a day and I had the 8500 Passport. I know for a fact my V1 worked better. Real life tests that some of the magazines did showed the V1 was better as well. You can't ignore the fact man. The X50 is good for what it does for the money, but the V1 is just better.

 

You have yet to present any "fact", just you telling us what you "know" as "fact", and demanding us believe it, or at least not ignore it.

From the tests the previous poster shows, he says the V1 wins... I guess he didn't bother to understand the tests or actually read the results. The 8500 actually outperformed the V1 in most categories, and quite heavily in the 9 mile detection test... which the poster for some reason didn't post.... interesting.

Continuing on with looking more closely at those tests sited (after spending about an 1 1/2 hours going over the numbers and reading, rather than simply posting some graphics):

Response time:
Passport X50- .96 seconds [winner]
Valentine One- 1.01 second

Over the hill:
"The Passport X50 was the most consistent detector reporting the greatest signal strength" http://www.speedzones.com/overthehill.html to get the quote and digest the numbers if you care to

Laser detection:
"In our trailing vehicle test we selected the best detector for laser alerts, the Valentine One"

Radar Detector Detection (RDD):
Both the 8500 and V1 were undetected by VG2 and VG4. No detector that was tested was invisible to the Spectre III. Beyond that, no detectors (that I can find) alert you if there is a Spectre III nearby. Thus, whether you are detected at 1 foot or 1000 feet, you never know it, so distance doesn't matter. That being said:

Passport X50 was detected by the Spectre III at 954 feet.
V1 was detected by the Spectre III at 166 feet.

Proximity of Repsonse:
It is important that as you approach a vehcile, the number of "bars" on your radar detector should go up. This is repeated by Speed Measurement Labs at http://www.speedzones.com/proximity.html

Measurement is # of bars lit out of total bars on detector:

V1 being painted by an instant on Ka 34.7 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
8/8 8/8

V1 being painted by a contact on Ka 34.7 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
8/8 8/8

This is not good as the signal "strength"/response should increase as you approach the source.
8500 being painted by an instant on Ka 34.7 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
4/7 6/7

8500 being painted by a constant on Ka 34.7 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
5/7 6/7

Winner? 8500.

V1 being painted by an instant on Ka 35.5 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
4/8 7/8

V1 being painted by a contact on Ka 35.5 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
4/8 6/8

8500 being painted by an instant on Ka 35.5 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
5/7 6/7

8500 being painted by a constant on Ka 35.5 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
5/7 6/7

Winner? I guess V1 if you consider the lit bars increased by 2 over .5 miles while the 8500 lit bars only increased by 1.

V1 being painted by an instant on Ka Ka 33.8 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
5/8 6/8

V1 being painted by a contact on Ka 33.8 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
5/8 6/8

8500 being painted by an instant on Ka 33.8 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
5/7 6/7

8500 being painted by a constant on Ka 33.8 GHz:
2mi 1.5mi
5/7 6/7

Winner? None, both lit bars increased by 1.

Overall Winner: Probably 8500 as the V1 failed one of the tests and the V1 only lit one more bar than that 8500 in a single test , which is an accuracy-of-signal-bar-increasing-upon-approach of only 12.5% on ONE test.

POP Detection:
# of detections/# of tests

Ka POP 33.8 GHz
Valentine 1: 0/3
8500: 3/3

K POP 24.150 GHz
Valentine 1: 3/3
8500: 3/3

Winner? 8500

Long Range Detection:
8500 hands down. I won't even comment more, go read http://www.speedzones.com/longrange.html "The Passport X50 is the Long Ranger of Radar Detection and hotter than a Texas jalapeno pepper!"

More tests show:

http://www.radarbusters.com/support/product-tests/3.asp
Escort does not false alarm as much as V1.
Autoweek magazine November 2004 reviewed the new 1.8 version of the Valentine 1 radar detector and referred to it as the "Chicken Little" of radar detectors because of all its false alarms and commented that the average user would end up tuning out all alerts.

And for what it is worth:
http://www.radarbusters.com/support/product-tests/5.asp and
http://www.radarbusters.com/support/...mendations.asp

Now do I really care two shi*s about all this? No. My point is that people in this thread and talking out of their @sses, and it needs to get locked, because it's no longer constructive dialog, but people telling anecdotal (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=anecdotal) stories and claiming to be authoritative sources so we should just believe what they say.

 

Wow, you are believing a test site that is against Valentine period. The guy left V1 and started his own site for tests and has always been against Valentine. This is a known fact on the net. C&D or M&T magazine is a more reliable source and they did some tests and it showed the V1 ahead if signal strength, sensitivity for picking up the signals sooner, etc.

Also the V1 has arrows so you at least know where the signal is coming from unlike the X50. Until you have owned both, please don't knock on them.

 

http://www.caranddriver.com/article....rticle_id=1993

V1 wins.


http://www.motortrend.com/features/c...de/index6.html

V1 wins.... 2005 test

http://www.motortrend.com/features/c...de/index8.html

 

I apologize I either 1.) didn't make it clear enough or 2.) expected you were bright enough to determine the test results I used were from Speed Measurement Laboratories. From everything I've read and heard about SML, they are not owned by anyone like you describe. You might be talking about "radar roy" which is what I referenced in the last couple of links. But if you notice I also said "for what it is worth" because I realized his site was nothing "official" or neutral 3rd party like SML is. If you do some research into SML, I think you'd be impressed.

I don't think you understand the concept of authoritative source. It does not matter if you have owned both, it does not matter if I have owned both. It matters what scientific tests show. Please provide me with 3rd party neutral tests which show the V1 as being significantly better than the 8500.

ALL THAT being said, my father owns a V1, I own an 8500, we have swapped multiple times, for multiple road trips and multiple days of normal daily/city driving. However, I have not supplemented my own or my father's experiences because they aren't worth anything (please read above).

 

Your Car and Driver results do not decribe what test equipment they used, the scenarios in which they performed the tests, the location in which they were tested, anything. Neither does the motortrend now that I look at it more closely.