(edit, Sept 12 '04 - I feel obligated to add something here. A few months ago, I sold the Valentine and went with the Escort's brother, the 8500x50. I really have to say that I'm more comfortable with the x50 than I was with the Valentine; despite the lack of a rear radar antenna, I personally like it more than I did my V1. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that all three units are top-notch devices, but personally, I've switched over to the x50. I suppose I just got tired of the V, but what you see here still holds true. Speedzones, Radartest, and the idiotic biased comments in many of the review feedback pages here aside, I'm sure you'd be well-suited with any unit and it falls down to simply what you want yourself.)

Alrighty, here we go.

My radar detector experience began long ago, when I started off with the Cobra 9850.

No thanks, I'll pass.

Next in line was the Beltronics Express 916. Decent unit by all means, but again, I'll pass.

After that, it was the Bel 940. A very brief - couple hours - test against the 8500 with this one showed the Escort to be slightly, slightly better on Ka, with a rough degree of equalness otherwise. All things considered, though, between those two, I'd probably go with the 8500.

The next one I got (these were all swaps, not separate purchases!) was the Bel 985. I used this one for a year. I have reviewed that unit, too, and I was very pleased with it.

(Update, May 28, 2003: my review of the Bel 985 is here: http://www.epinions.com/content_69598285444 )

However, I had been wanting to try the Valentine and the Escort, so I eventually did that. So, let's get to that.

My initial response to opening the grey and white box with the Valentine in it was that it was smaller than the pictures (thanks in no small part to their latest update, which shrunk the unit by a little bit). Included are all the standard goodies plus a direct wire power adaptor for hardwiring (which I will be doing to my 'Vette); the only thing missing is a concealed display, which is really unnecessary for me.

Major revelation #2: Sometimes, this thing will not shut up. I'm not talking about falses here. I mean that it is very, very sensitive, and it does an excellent job of telling you the location of the nearest supermarket door or whatnot. If your detector easily annoys you, you'll want to keep that in mind.

For a $400 detector, the V1 is surprisingly lacking in features, such as frequency display, voice (which is of no importance to me), compass (also not important), etc. On the other hand, it is also the *only* detector that has a rearward-facing antenna. It is also one of a few (the only other one I know of is the Escort 8500) that have the ability to identify multiple radar sources.

In my testing of the Valentine One vs. the Escort 8500, I found one thing to be very consistent: the Valentine always won on K band. Always. Multiple trials against a radar sign or two confirmed this, and yes, only one unit was on. Even with both on, I got the same results.

Unfortunately, in my time with the 8500, I never ran across a steady source of Ka. In my few encounters with it, though, I will say this: The Valentine went off first, but as soon as I turned it off to give the Escort a chance, that one went off, also. Also, in those few Ka run-ins, both had outstanding range.

People sometimes complain about the Valentine's so-called "substandard Ka sensitivity." I can't speak for the past, but in my experience, there is nothing substandard about anything on the Valentine. Case in point:

Today, I was on a rural two-lane road with maybe one or two of those hills that are so light that they will just barely hide oncoming cars from a great distance. The Valentine goes off: K band, ahead, one source. Got maybe two beeps from it, and it stopped. Ten seconds later, the same thing happens, but this time it is a constant signal. I drive on at the speed limit now (70 mph) with one SUV in front of me. Thirty seconds later (really, 30 seconds - I was using my watch the whole time), I can make out a white vehicle in oncoming traffic, which could possibly be a radar unit from the distance I was at. Continuing on, that white vehicle (which was just a truck) passes, and following along was a county officer. Using my watch as a timing device, I had about one minute and thirty seconds - yup, 1:30 - from the time that the V went off (I'm not sure if it was at first alert or constant alert; I believe I began timing just after first alert) to the time I passed the officer. At 70 mph, this works out to be about 1.75 miles with that light hill just hiding him a while back and a vehicle in front of both myself and the cop (math: 70 mph / 60 = miles per minute; take this answer and add one half of that answer to it, and you will get around 1.75 (at 70 mph, one minute is 1.16667 miles)).

Now, I know that the Escort and Bel would have given more than ample time to get your speed back to legal limits, but I have my doubts as to whether they could have done that. Like I said, in my testing, the V was winning constantly on K band. For anyone that wants maximum performance, I'd definitely go with the Valentine. It will, as I said, go off frequently in city areas, but you've got to realize that that is because of its sensitivity.

It is programmable, of course - I have disabled X band on mine and set the Ka alerts to be more urgent (seeing as how Ka is always bad news, save for the occasional leaky radar detector). The rest is already very well covered in other reviews: the magnesium case, the arrows (which do work, btw; sure, there will be an occasional and brief flicker in areas with many, many things to reflect a signal, and they may seem to be delayed a second or two from the time you pass an automatic door to the time the arrow points "behind", but they DO work. Same with the bogey counter.

Really, I think that way too much is made out of this whole radar detector issue. You'll be pretty well off with either of the two (or three, including the Bel 985.) The Escort offers great performance with fewer nonessential alerts (like those automatic doors). The Valentine is ultra-sensitive and goes off at the smallest provocation and has a rear antenna, and, in my experience, offers slightly better performance than the Escort.

Since I'm all for getting the most performance from a detector in spite of a few door alerts, I'll take the Valentine!


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