I have had many detectors over the years. I stayed with Escort/Passport. The best one I have had todate was the Passport (the one the size of a pack of smokes) made by Cincinatti Microwave. That puppy had fewer false alarms than any other I have ever had including my new 8500 X50!

Heres the deal, if you get a "cheap" one, you will deal with lots of false alarms. You will begin to ignore it. That's your fatal mistake. When you are in an area where you don't know the "false alarms" (door openers, "your speed" is signs) from the real deal, you need to believe in your detector. You need to be on the brakes NOW! Passport will give you that confidence. Where I live, it's flat as a pancake. You can pick up the cops up to EIGHT MILES AWAY with this thing! Don't by a cheap one.

Some suggestions: Look in pawn shops. You may get lucky and find a shop that doesn't know what they are worth. At the most, you will pay the 150 bucks you are wanting to spend. If you are lucky, you'll get one for 20-30 bux!

 

I would suggest a Bel X65 Pro. You can get it from Ebay for around $200. Rated best among reviews of V1 and Passport 8500. No flames please! Just my opinion, and the reviews I read. I wanted a V1, but at $400 + shipping, little outside my league.

 

Thanks for all the input. Not getting it at the moment yet but hopefully the price comes down a bit for the V1 or passport.

Thanks!

 

If price is a major concern, get the top of the line vector (Bel) 995. I have one going on a year & it saved me many times. It is one of the few affordable units that has POP detection. You can have it hard wired at any audio installer in like 30 minutes. I got it on Ebay for like $200 shipped. Check it out.

 

Absolutely the ONLY way to fly is the 8500

 

What's a good, affordable ticket?

---> get the Valentine. Road proven. Always on 2-band POP, can be upgraded & ....



user stories: V1 vs. 8500

Cheers, ted

 

why go cheap whe you can get the best? Valentine1 def will pay itself off. Besides, you get free upgrades for a year. In the long run, its a better deal. Buy it, try it for a month and if that doesnt convince you, give it back and get a cheap one. I bet youll stay with the V1 though.

 

I love my Rocky Mountain Radar one....it was 140 bucks, works great every time.

 

By the way, mine's the RMRD250 (model #)

 

You are joking right because here are the videos of all Rocky Mountain products not jamming anything:

http://www.jammertests.com/page/page/1904719.htm

 

I have owned Bel's, the 8500 and a 2 V1's now (first one stolen). For the cheapness, you can't beat Bel. But for the best of the line radar, get the V1. It picks up cops much sooner than the 8500. And my V1 also doesn't false a lot.

 

Well, I appreciate the link, and no, I'm not joking...it works absolutely fine, and it has for the last two years.

 

Oh, and by the way, I have a radar detector, not a jammer, so again, great link, but my radar detector works just fine.

 

I have the Solo cordless detector, and it works great. The sensitivity is probably 85% of the top end "corded" models. Basically, you don't see many cordless units because engineering a cordless model to perform close to a corded model is very expensive, as it is to manufacture, too. The problem is the drain on the batteries that being constantly "on" will entail - so the cordless units (at least the Solo, anyway) use technology which allows them to "checK' for new radar signals in very short (microsecond) pulses, with the battery being used only 1/10th of each second, or so. This way, the batteries don't run down too quickly. I get about 2 - 2.5 weeks driving in with mine, before replacing the two "AA" batteries (usually use standard Duracell or Energizers), which is about 1,000 to 1,200 miles average driving. There is a built in "battery saver" feature that will automatically shut the detector off if no radar has been detected in 30 minutes or so, like when you've pulled into your garage and gone in the house while forgetting to shut it off (It gives you an audio and lighted warning for a few seconds, and you just hit the power button if you want it to stay on). According to the manufacturer, the Solo loses no sensitivity at all until the batteries die - it's all or nothing, no loss of effectiveness as the batteries "age".

Hope I'm explaining the technology well enough - I'm just a layman who owns one, and read their pamphlet about 3 years ago when I bought this one (second Solo I've owned).

Advantages are no cord (doh!), and portability which allows me to carry it from car to car - excellent for rental car use, BTW! It's about the size of a pack of smokes - and also, there is an auxilary power cord, if the batteries run out, or if you just want to use your own power supply.

Just wanted to clear up any misconceptions.

My $0.02