Valentine One V1 Radar Detector
- Mute: With Mute
- Detection Area: Front / Rear
- Detection Bands: X Band K Band Ka Band Ku Band Laser
- Alert type: Audio / Visual
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V1 or Escort 8500
Pros
sensitivity, rear antenna, arrows
Cons
quirky ergonomics, no automute, falsing
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
If you want the best reception and don't mind a few falses and can live without automute go for it.
Camero vs. Mustang F150 vs Dodge Ram Automatic vs. Manual
Diesel or Gas. Tough choices. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. Ford owners wouldn't be caught dead with a Chevy and vice versa. And so it is with V1 and Escort 8500. Just read all the epinions. Most will rate either detector a 5 with a few 1's thrown in recommending the other brand. Very few if any middle of the road opinions.
So after researching and reading countless reviews I thought I'd share with you what I have learned. Let me first say since there are V1 and Escort loyalist and neither one would be caught dead owning the other. They are both good if not great detectors. With no clear winner it comes down to the personal preferences of each detector.
When my commute changed so did the number of smokies setting up traps on my daily ride. With no fewer than 2 traps going into work and another 2 going home it was time to get a detector. I wanted a quality detector since my past experience was my wife's original (early 80's vintage) Escort and a Whistler Spectrum. I didn't want to spend the money for 2 Escorts since they were pricey but in hind sight I wish I did.
Let's start by debunking a few reviews. First at Escort's website they list 15 magazines recommending their detector. In reality there are only 3 reviews 1 clearly for escort. A second clearly for V1 and the 3rd that says either one is a good choice. The first is radartest.com (easily the most biased, and I will prove why), this article is the basis for Automobile magazines and others. The next is Car and Drivers and the last is Speedzones.com which is used by Motor Trend.
Since both detectors have generous 30 day money back return policies I thought I buy both and test them side by side on my windshield. Let's talk about radartests article. The V1 is lighter, shorter and the Escort is much longer than the V1 is wider. But who cares. The V1 has a sensor that adjusts the brightness of the display. It lost points because it doesn't have a button to manually adjust it. It also is programmable just like the 8500 and has selectable band defeat but again radartest did not acknowledge these features. Also it has a rear antenna which if anything, was a clear winner in my tests by a wide margin. The radartest article did not publish any #'s on rear detection distance because if it had it could not defend the results. Instead he had to write a full page on why you don't need it. That's like saying you don't need A.C. in your car because you can roll the windows down and besides it costs more, decreases mileage and it requires maintenance. See my point? On to the meat and potatoes. Living in New England my tests do not involve long open stretches. Most of the cops here were around corners or behind hills. The V1 beat the 8500 every time period. So again I have to dispute radartest.com results. Now before you go off and buy a V1 let me explain that the 8500 was only 1 or 2 seconds behind. To some that may sound like allot, to others (and myself) it was very close. You see the 8500 hardly ever falsed. When it went off, I responded immediately. While the V1 enjoyed that 1 to 2 second advantage because of it's falsing I hesitated to see if the signal picked up before I reacted otherwise I would have done a lot of unnecessary braking. I don't want to imply that the V1 is a big falser, in fact it's acceptable, it's just that the 8500 was virtually false free.
Things I like and hate. The Escort has automute which means it will alert you at full volume then that volume will roughly halve after a few seconds so as not to get annoying. If that's not enough it also has a mute button which comes in handy if your stopped say at a light and you just want the noise to end. The V1 you have to manually hit a button that will cut down the volume to a predetermined level. It does not have a full mute button.
The display on the 8500 is easy to read with band identification and a bar graph for signal strength. The V1 has an annoying LED next to the band which is written in tiny letters. It's hard to read and impossible to read at night. Let's say you stop to get gas and leave the detector on. When you go to start the car the V1 power cycles which is annoying while the 8500 doesn't. So which do I recommend. It's tough. If you just want a good detector to plug in and go the 8500 is easier to use. Something I would buy for the wife. Oh yeah before I forget if you need X-band coverage. Avoid the V1. It was relentless in falsing even in Advanced logic mode. It essential was on constantly. I had to manually defeat X-band but after that the falsing for the other bands was minimal just not up to the 8500's selectivity. The V1 as stated before gives you much better rear reception. After passing a radar source it would still indicate radar 5-10 seconds over the Escort. As far as the arrows it's nice but not critical. They do work. Most of the time I would just slow down at the onset of an alert and wait a minute after the final alert. Only one time traveling down the highway with just the Escort (I got it a few days earlier than the V1) I must have been a mile behind or ahead of a cop because it would go on get stronger then go off for a minute then repeat. This happened for 30 miles and drove me crazy. That was the one time I wished I had the arrows.
Diesel or Gas. Tough choices. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. Ford owners wouldn't be caught dead with a Chevy and vice versa. And so it is with V1 and Escort 8500. Just read all the epinions. Most will rate either detector a 5 with a few 1's thrown in recommending the other brand. Very few if any middle of the road opinions.
So after researching and reading countless reviews I thought I'd share with you what I have learned. Let me first say since there are V1 and Escort loyalist and neither one would be caught dead owning the other. They are both good if not great detectors. With no clear winner it comes down to the personal preferences of each detector.
When my commute changed so did the number of smokies setting up traps on my daily ride. With no fewer than 2 traps going into work and another 2 going home it was time to get a detector. I wanted a quality detector since my past experience was my wife's original (early 80's vintage) Escort and a Whistler Spectrum. I didn't want to spend the money for 2 Escorts since they were pricey but in hind sight I wish I did.
Let's start by debunking a few reviews. First at Escort's website they list 15 magazines recommending their detector. In reality there are only 3 reviews 1 clearly for escort. A second clearly for V1 and the 3rd that says either one is a good choice. The first is radartest.com (easily the most biased, and I will prove why), this article is the basis for Automobile magazines and others. The next is Car and Drivers and the last is Speedzones.com which is used by Motor Trend.
Since both detectors have generous 30 day money back return policies I thought I buy both and test them side by side on my windshield. Let's talk about radartests article. The V1 is lighter, shorter and the Escort is much longer than the V1 is wider. But who cares. The V1 has a sensor that adjusts the brightness of the display. It lost points because it doesn't have a button to manually adjust it. It also is programmable just like the 8500 and has selectable band defeat but again radartest did not acknowledge these features. Also it has a rear antenna which if anything, was a clear winner in my tests by a wide margin. The radartest article did not publish any #'s on rear detection distance because if it had it could not defend the results. Instead he had to write a full page on why you don't need it. That's like saying you don't need A.C. in your car because you can roll the windows down and besides it costs more, decreases mileage and it requires maintenance. See my point? On to the meat and potatoes. Living in New England my tests do not involve long open stretches. Most of the cops here were around corners or behind hills. The V1 beat the 8500 every time period. So again I have to dispute radartest.com results. Now before you go off and buy a V1 let me explain that the 8500 was only 1 or 2 seconds behind. To some that may sound like allot, to others (and myself) it was very close. You see the 8500 hardly ever falsed. When it went off, I responded immediately. While the V1 enjoyed that 1 to 2 second advantage because of it's falsing I hesitated to see if the signal picked up before I reacted otherwise I would have done a lot of unnecessary braking. I don't want to imply that the V1 is a big falser, in fact it's acceptable, it's just that the 8500 was virtually false free.
Things I like and hate. The Escort has automute which means it will alert you at full volume then that volume will roughly halve after a few seconds so as not to get annoying. If that's not enough it also has a mute button which comes in handy if your stopped say at a light and you just want the noise to end. The V1 you have to manually hit a button that will cut down the volume to a predetermined level. It does not have a full mute button.
The display on the 8500 is easy to read with band identification and a bar graph for signal strength. The V1 has an annoying LED next to the band which is written in tiny letters. It's hard to read and impossible to read at night. Let's say you stop to get gas and leave the detector on. When you go to start the car the V1 power cycles which is annoying while the 8500 doesn't. So which do I recommend. It's tough. If you just want a good detector to plug in and go the 8500 is easier to use. Something I would buy for the wife. Oh yeah before I forget if you need X-band coverage. Avoid the V1. It was relentless in falsing even in Advanced logic mode. It essential was on constantly. I had to manually defeat X-band but after that the falsing for the other bands was minimal just not up to the 8500's selectivity. The V1 as stated before gives you much better rear reception. After passing a radar source it would still indicate radar 5-10 seconds over the Escort. As far as the arrows it's nice but not critical. They do work. Most of the time I would just slow down at the onset of an alert and wait a minute after the final alert. Only one time traveling down the highway with just the Escort (I got it a few days earlier than the V1) I must have been a mile behind or ahead of a cop because it would go on get stronger then go off for a minute then repeat. This happened for 30 miles and drove me crazy. That was the one time I wished I had the arrows.
