soupcraze's Full Review: Rocky Mountain RMR-D250 Radar Detector
The Rocky Mountain RMR-D250 is one of the more expensive detectors in the Rocky Mountain product line-up. Like other detectors on the market, it detects X, K, Ka, Laser, and also SWS (Safety Warning System). It shares many similarities with cheaper models, except for the fact that it has an icon display and voice alerts. With these features, it's more expensive than many other options available from Rocky Mountain. But is it worth it? After some use with the RMR-D250 and other Rocky Mountain products, here's what I found.
-Price-
*The RMR-D250 varies in price. I've seen it retailing for as little as $130 all the way up to the MSRP of $199.99. Rocky Mountain was probably hoping to get more people to buy this unit through it's more appealing display and voice alerts. However, with such a price tag, the RMR-D250 exceeds the competition from Whistler which offers far better detectors with even more features. Then the RMR-D250 also treaded into more dangerous territory, Beltronics' Vector territory. Those are known to be the best "bang for the buck" detectors. Depending on where you get the RMR-D250, it puts itself in the same price area as the Bel Vector 940 and Bel Vector 960, both which far outperform the RMR-D250 when it comes to sensitivity, and also have more features anyhow. For under $100, you can still easily take the RMR-D250 down with a Bel Express or Whistler radar detector. The Whistlers for instance, offer far more features and provide much better performance. If you're hooked onto Rocky Mountain's excellent marketing of manipulating consumers, then the RMR-D250 is great since you'll have the best of what they have to offer, and what detectors that cost far less also can offer with much better performance.
-Performance-
*The RMR-D250 has the so-called MicroScan technology which detects POP radar mode (I didn't encounter it... So...) and also SmartScan which is supposed to increase the range and get faster detection? Wow, I was in for a treat! New look or not... The RMR-D250 still performs horribly when it's compared to a much cheaper Whistler radar detector, or a similarly priced Beltronics Vector. The RMR-D250 might provide mediocre K-Band performance for the typical 5mph-over-the-limit driver, but in no way would suffice for a driver pulling off 10mph+ over the speed limit. Like any cheap detector, the RMR-D250 can detect K-Band. I decided to compare it solely to the Bel Vector 985 (~$215) which has the same performance as the cheaper Bel Vector 940 (~$150) since they only differ in features. When it came to K-Band performance, the Vector gave signifcantly more of extra warning time compared to the RMR-D250 which gave a K-Band warning of a parked police cruiser only about a few seconds or so before it became visible. When it came to Ka-Band performance, the Vector once again gave a very long warning time, while the RMR-D250 began to give off the warning when the cruiser was already in sight. Just being curious about X-Band performance, I took it out on IL-60 in Lake Forest, and it provided sufficient coverage. However, X-Band is just about obsolete and rarely used anymore. The one great thing about the RMR-D250 is that you can see the threats displayed on the totally awesome icon display which you'd find anyhow on much cheaper detectors, better than the little LED lights on the cheaper Rocky Mountain detectors.
-Ease of Use & Features-
*In comparison to what Rocky Mountain offers on the lower end of the spectrum, I think that the RMR-D250 has a little more to offer. It offers the much better to read icon display. However, it has no differentiation between K and Ka bands so the icon reads K/Ka. This can prove to be annoying if you are very strategic about spotting cops, distinguishing falsing, and anything else that you can imagine that requires visual identification. I still think that for the price that you pay for the RMR-D250, they could've at least provided a text display. C'mon Rocky Mountain! The Whistler DE-1743 which is half the price of the RMR-D250 provides a much nicer icon display, and also the Whistler DE-1753 has a nice red text display and still manages to stay under $100. The RMR-D250 does have SWS (Safety Warning Alerts) which can be beneficial for some people if they are very cautious drivers and want to know about the outside environment. Then there's one other nice feature about the RMR-D250, it has voice alerts. Many people can find this to be very useful since they don't need to make a visual identification of the radar band, or memorize tonal alerts. The sound provided on the RMR-D250 is adequate for anyone with quiet car environments. However, if you blast your music, the speaker won't go loud enough for you to hear the alerts. As for the ease of use, the RMR-D250 is once again very simplistic. It's amazing as to how bare-bones a detector can be at well over $100! It has three buttons. It has one button to dim the display from bright to darker. It has one button to mute the detector. Then there's another button to switch between the City and Highway modes. The volume is controlled by an anctient turn-wheel. If you're detector illiterate, this is a good choice since there's practically nothing you can do with it. Still, I don't think it's difficult to get accustomed to something like a Vector series detector from Beltronics. For the price you pay, you get a bit of a skimpy detector.
-The Verdict-
*The RMR-D250 has some nicer things about it than the cheaper Rocky Mountain devices on the market. However, the addition of the icon display, voice alerts, and SWS are by no means able to make this a worthwhile detector. The point of a radar detector is to detect police radar efficiently. The RMR-D250 completely lacks behind much cheaper Whistler and Cobra radar detectors that cost under $100, and when it comes to other detectors in the price range, the RMR-D250 is blown away by Beltronics' Vector series. If you like tickets or to spend way more money than you have to, then go with the RMR-D250.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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