I read through all of the negative reviews and many of the positive ones as well as all the more recent comparisons I could find and then bought the 9500ix.

My prior detector was a Solo S2 that was stolen while I was deployed. I loved that one and so gave strong consideration to the Escort brand. I know folks who love their Valentines, but I was unimpressed by them.

I love it. The only thing I can conclude from the negative reviews is that they failed to read the manual before using it or are religiously devoted to the Valentine One.

1: Failing to alert on speed cams, red light cams, etc: No database is perfect. That's why this product has the ability to mark speed traps, cameras, etc. on the fly. I've used mine for two days and have already marked several types of locations either for flagging or for ignoring which seems to work perfectly.

2: Detection range: Flawless. More than enough, even in the city, to give me time to react but not so much I decide the thing is false-alerting. Within 5 minutes of installing it the thing gave me ample warning of a motorcycle cop approaching with K-Band going and I had almost a full minute to react. Valentine One touts it's very long-detection range. Great, but I don't really care if someone in the next county is pointing a RADAR gun along another road. The detection range on this is excellent without being useless.

3: The Case:  I don't WANT a ten-pound chunk of magnesium hanging off my windshield. The build quality on this is excellent, solid and...LIGHT.

4: The coiled cord. Eh. Gives me plenty of flexibility. In my Saturn I have to play some games to route it where I want to go, but this is a problem with any cord. Kinda silly to complain that they don't supply you with every kind of cord made when you purchase it.

5: The Display. Seems clear and easy to read to me. Complaints about it not showing the band? RTM again. I switched the voice off on mine and went with the Expert display which gives me a bar display of the strength and band of individual emitters. If I wanted to, I could set it to display the FREQUENCY of individual emitters. I like the quick visual display of my speed upon alert, but I can turn that off if I choose.

6: Display too bright. Press the BRT button to dim it down, or completely dark or set it to auto and let it dim itself at night. Complaints about that tiny little LED on the power adapter: THAT is too bright? I suggest wearing your sunglasses at night. Moonlight must be actively painful. Or, try a piece of tape. I love having both the visual cue and a second mute button available on the adapter.

I LOVE the Auto-Learn feature. There's one stretch I drive through that I was unsure what was being alerted. Three trips through and the thing determined it was a false-alert and now...no more beeps there. I didn't even have to mark the location myself. Conveniently, it indicates it's blocking a signal there with a very unobtrusive rotating GPS symbol so that I can UNBLOCK it if I choose to.

I do a LOT of driving, both city and highway and this appears to be the best detector available for me. If you're a serious driver and exposed to a wide variety of threats, this is an outstanding, if expensive detector with an incredible array of features and highly configurable.

Orion

Recommended: Yes