People purchase radar detectors for a variety of reason. My own personal reason was for a reminder. For many years I ran from call to call, with lights flashing and siren blazing in a VERY busy , high crime area. This equates to a bad habit of driving fast.  Purchasing a radar detector helped me retrain myself.

As people research which is “The Best” detector , they are faced with reviews from people with agendas.

REMEMBER, many these reviews are trying to sell you something  and of course they don’t get paid if they recommend something they make no money on.

I have followed many of these reviewers over the years and watched their opinions change drastically. One year this feature is garbage, not needed and a year later a must have option. This just muddies the waters. Some of these reviewers have never issued a traffic citation or been faced with all situations that officers face when setting up a radar post. A highway officer will have drastically different techniques then an inner city officer.

What I found was that the “BEST” detectors came down, repeatedly, to the same three. Escort, Valentine 1 and Bell.

Now it may seem like I am defending Valentine 1, but it seems to be the only detector smeared by reviewers rather then just reviewed.

Let’s start with one of my favorites, Craig Peterson from Radartest.com.  He is also one of the most erratic reviewers and has flip flopped more then John Kerry. I figured out  very soon that his reviews where biased and chocked full of errors, along with his blatant attacks on Valentine 1.

Over the years he has said, the rear facing antenna  was worthless as patrol cars coming up from the rear faced no threat. WRONG, even more wrong as radar units have progressed to same direction capability. Even years ago, we always ran with moving radar on.

He now opines, that it is still worthless and has severe limitations. One of the limitations is distance. Even though the Valentine 1 is FAR superior in this area, he dismisses basic practices by radar officers around the country. This is due to his lack of experience. CRAIG, we run with radar on as we overtake cars. A rear facing antenna gives you very advanced warning of an overtaking patrol car with radar on.

I guess Valentine 1 was FAR ahead of the game.

He further has expressed silly Cons for the Valentine 1, such as weight and size. Had you read his reviews over the years and then actually thought about it you would see how silly the were.

Weight?  Who cares?  It’s attached to the windshield. I don’t hold it.

Size?  He repeatedly said the Valentine 1 was larger then other units , when it was actually SMALLER. Length x Width x height gives you size. he always pointed to the width of the V1 and stated it was an obstruction. How silly.

Over the years of stopping speeders with radar detectors, thanks to instant on, I found that most radar detector mounts in “standard” locations. Nearly almost ALWAYS mounted to the right of the driver , near the center line of the car. Where WIDTH would make no obstruction, but LENGTH of a unit would. Of course the Escort being the longest would be an obstruction, not the V1. This fact never mentioned by Craig.

I think his affiliations has a big part of his bias. There are other examples , but I don’t want to waste all the space on Craig.

This is one reviewer who should be dismissed and don’t bother purchasing his reviews.

Next up is Radar Roy of Radarbusters.com.  Roy has some great info on his site, but yet another bias review in favor of the almighty dollar.

While he praises Escort and Bell, he shows his bias by referring to a 3 year old review from Autoweek, where they called the V1 “chicken little”.  He ignores a 2005 review, which he called “One of the best independent reviews we have ever seen”, which states the following about the V1 , “the detector now is now one of the quieter ones”. They further opined , “this detector has become our new reference.”

He further damages his credibility by stating that Escort and Bell have equal or superior rear detection as the V1. Sorry, Roy read the reviews. You should have left this one out.

Sadly, a law enforcement officer who sold out to the almighty dollar.

Now onto legitimate reviews.

Speedzones.com one of the best reviews. They just give you the stats of the test and no silly attempts at discrediting other units.  For the record and due to the increasing popularity of laser, V1 trounced all other units in detecting laser. Now many will say that the narrow beam of the laser will negate the V1 advantage. Sorry in all the years of running laser I was never able to keep the gun perfectly steady on a moving vehicle and thus you end up “waving” the beam. Of course this can be picked up , by following vehicles.

While reviewers like Craig Peterson have said the arrows on the V1 are useless and inaccurate, Speedlabs stated the following, “This arrow feature is extremely accurate”

One of the best reviews I’ve seen is on LaserVeil.com.

They give the pros and cons of each unit and do REAL WORLD testing.

They came to the same conclusion I did after testing, “Bottom line - all three of these radar detectors are truly stellar performers”

A must read for anyone trying to muddle through the bias  reviews and reviewers out there.

What did I do you ask? Well, I tested each one. I first bought the Escort. I did this as I had a bias towards these units.  In my years prior to my law enforcement career I owned both an Original Escort (which I still have) and a Passport, which was stolen.

I then then purchased a Bell and a V1.

My test ground was the NYS Thruway  from Southeast portion to the radar heavy North end and Tuxedo , NY (A nasty small town trap).

All units preformed well and alerted me to many radar set ups.

Preference will come down to feature set of each unit. You’ll have to decide which features are most important to you.

After living with each unit for a month 2 units got returned. I ended up keeping the V1 for 3 reasons far and above the others.

1. 1.The directional arrows. Highly accurate, great for determining threats and have alerted me to distant trailing N.Y. State troopers countless times. In the rural areas of N.Y. where there is not much signal bounce, the other units at times did not alert until I was being passed by the trooper.
   

2. 2.Bogey counter.  I was “saved” no less then half a dozen times in upstate NY by this feature. The NY state police will often set up radar traps in sequence. More then once I saw 3 bogeys listed and then drove through three set ups.
   

3. 3. Laser detection. Another favorite of the N.Y. S. Police.While the other units never alerted while I was a trailing vehicle. The V1 alerted several times.
   

My must have feature is of course directional arrows. I can never use another unit without them.

Many reviews bash the feature set of the Valentine 1 and go as far as make things up, this can be attributed to the fact that only Valentine 1 sells Valentine 1 and  therefore, this is not a money maker for them.

HOW TO BEAT A TRAFFIC TICKET