Not your father's radar detector
Written: Apr 13 '09
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Pros: GPS, magnetic compass, AURA database
Cons: short power cord, screen washes out in bright sunlight
The Bottom Line: This is a high-end radar detector with a whole host of well-thought-out features. Learn to use it and you'll love it.
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| kurt_g's Full Review: Cobra XRS 9960G Radar Detector |
I grew up in the 70's. I remember my father had a radar detector -- a largish black box with a row of round yellow lamps on the front. As I got older and got my own car, I also had my own radar detector -- smaller, but capable of only detecting the X and K bands, and it was shortly after I got it that Ka-band radar came out.
That was about the last I used radar detectors. I'd bought them off and on, but with the new instant-on radar guns that police were using, they didn't seem to work that well anymore.
So I went into the review of the <b>Cobra XRS 9960G radar detector</b> with a little skepticism.
I was surprised.
Cobra says that the XRS 9960G detects, "Detects 7 radar, 6 laser and 2 safety signals. Radar signals include X Band, K Band, Ka Superwide, Ku Band, VG-2, Spectre I and Spectre IV+. Laser signals include LTI 20-20, Ultra Lyte, ProLaser, ProLaser III, Stalker LIDAR and Speedlaser. Safety signals include Safety Alert® and Strobe Alert®."
15 radar frequencies in total, but a driver needs only to know that this unit will pick up any radar frequency in use today. At its best, the XRS 9960G was able to pick up radar from a stationary point (a toll plaza with one of those 'Your Speed Is' signs probably a good half mile away. I found that it did tend to display false alerts, particularly in highway mode, but that's not always a bad thing. Most of the time the alerts were timely enough to be useful, although I occasionally got a brief 'blip blip' just as a police cruiser was passing.
It's also worth saying that a radar detector is not a magic all-seeing genie. It does not guarantee you won't get a ticket, nor does it mean you will always detect the radar before it detects you. What a radar detector will do is tip the odds more in your favor.
But the XRS 9960G does a lot more. It can sense your engine's RPM's and your battery voltage and display it on its OLED screen. The screen is large for a radar detector. It also has a magnetic compass. That's the sort of thing that you don't realize how much you like having it until you actually do. And, it also has GPS.
The GPS unit is probably the most interesting add-on to the XRS 9960G. And it is an actual add-on; it's a small unit that attaches via mini-USB to the radar detector. Obviously like any GPS unit it locates you, but it also can store data from Cobra's AURA database. To do this, you sign up on a computer for the database (the service is free for life), download a small program from Cobra's website, and plug the GPS unit into your PC with a small USB-to-mini-USB cable. This provides you with a map of red-light cameras, speed cameras, speed traps, and the like. It's updated once daily, so your information will be reasonably up to date. I did pass a few red-light cameras and the XRS 9960G caught them all. Pretty cool.
The XRS 9960G's screen is very large; I'd never seen a screen like this on a radar detector. It's OLED, and can be hard to see in bright sunlight. The 'basic' screen has a lot of information on it -- such as compass direction, GPS status, and battery life. (Oddly, though, not your speed, which I would have liked.)
The unit has four buttons that you can use to control it. There are a lot of modes that you can turn off and on and customize it to your heart's content. I found that it was possible to make the display stay on all the time; the default is for it to turn off after a few seconds. It's possible to make it stay bright. It's possible to 'tag' a location where you know police like to hang out. It's possible to do a lot of things, but this radar detector is NOT a set-it-and-forget-it item. I found that a lot of what seemed like drawbacks were able to be changed through the menus. You will be much happier with this radar detector if you sit down and read the manual.
If there were drawbacks to the 9960G, it was that the cord seemed to be a little short (and I drive a Honda Accord.) The screen also did seemed washed out in bright sunlight. Setting it to bright all the time did help.
All in all, I was impressed by the XRS 9960G. If you are looking for a high-end radar detector with all the toys, this is one to consider.
I received my XRS9960G in return for a fair review.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kurt_g
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Location: Brick, NJ
Reviews written: 116
Trusted by: 38 members
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