SilverBullet_RENAMED

radartest.com is not a independent source. Passport paid them to make there radar shine above the rest, but also the guy who tests them on that site, use to work for Valentine and got fired for some reason, so he is on revenge.

I had both, the V1 is the best period.

SilverBullet_RENAMED

The older V1s use to FALSE alot, but the 1.8version does not. My V1 does not false near as often as my 8500 did.

kensteele

Of course the post count number unto itself has nothing to do with intelligence or validity. I was just making it easy for someone [new] who read this thread to easily determine what to believe and what not to believe for this thread only.

Here's what I did. I read the whole thread. I sorted opinion from fact the best I could. I looked for an easy way to make a distinction without calling out people's names. I purposely chose a post count number that would place one group of people on one side of the line and the other group on the other side of the line.

A quick and easy way to help prevent some of the new folks from changing and/or distorting the facts. Everyone's opinions are valuable and welcome but let's try not to distort the facts. So I guess it is debatable whether it's a fact or opinion or whatever. I used the post count to clear it up for the average person reading this. Or try to. Number could have been 1000. But it was for this thread only.

Now the tone of this thread has changed. At first it was Bill playing the radartest card by saying that this group is somewhat biased and that he would direct you to a less biased group of people at the infamous radartest site. Well we have and use the V1 (and we've used the 8500 too) I guess you do too, so we know what we know about it and we report it as such. Radartest knows what they know, too; however, they report what they've been paid to report. Only a fool would believe that a paid sponsor is independent and unbiased. If a CNN reporter was saying on the air that the bin Ladin is NOT GUILTY and the bin Ladin paid him $100,000 last year, the reporter cannot be unbiased, regardless of the situation. Even if the bin Ladin is found NOT GUILTY during the later trial, the reporter is and was biased. I digress.

Later this thread got into semantics and do you have proof and what you may or may not have read in other places on the Internet. Bottom line is we have enough proof to say what we are saying. And that is radartest cannot be trusted, not even one bit. You mention their name, you lose credibility. 747 says his V1 falses like crazy and then he says the V1 is good for detecting banks and grocery stores. I don't know where he lives, Seattle? Maybe his unit was going crazy all the time, maybe it was defective, maybe user error, who knows. He's free to express, maybe I overreacted on his but I think I've seen some other places where he said some things that made me go hmmmm. Even so my point is why are you promoting the 8500 so much so heavily over the V1? I think we all already know that they are both pretty good and generally give comparable results, that's pretty much how both camps agree. I just find it strange starting to hear somebody come back with 8500 is light years ahead of the V1. We already know its not. BTW, I had the 8500 on my dash for nearly a month. And I've had radar detectors driving since 1985, so thanks for referring to me as a kid at age 37, really I don't mind. But I do know the 8500 is not a machine. :P

Anyway there's Rob who obviously hasn't run with a radar detector for very long. Your statement proved this. And I can pretty much disproved everything you said in your other post. But I guess that's your opinion and that's what happened to you. Fine. My bad.

Again, not calling people liars. Lie means you know the truth but you say something else in order to mislead. That's not what is going on here. That is what's going on at radartest. Being on this forum for months and months and even years seeing the same issues come and go, it makes you a certain way that may appear to be "know it all" or "wise guy" or whatever. I agree with that and I apologize if that's the way it comes off as; it's not intended. But remember, if you go to the forum at airlinepilots.com and you say "747s are no good for interstate travel (within the continental US), airlines don't really want to fly them unless they are going overseas." Pilots in that forum will say Huh, who is this [newbie] guy? and why does he say this? Yes, it's his opinion and there's no real way to spell out the facts but duh the pilots fly the planes; they should know. WE have been using radar detectors nearly since they first came out or started getting popular; and working with cops and radars for years; decade. It is not rocket science. You make the statement, V1 is no good in the city...blah blah blah, keep it on the open highway? cops has already clocked you by the time it goes off?

Boeing747

Looking at the post counts did make a difference in THIS thread because the people with high post counts were V1 supporters -didn't notice this?...I'm sure you did. I don't know about the post count strategy, newbies may get the impression Acura-CL.com really doesn't like them and don't care about their opinions.

I never said the 8500 is light years ahead of the V1. My unit wasn't defective. The V1 sings its song (yeah, I'm not going to let this go) in city areas and it gets annoying as hell. My friend's V1 did the same and you will find the same exact comments from people at various messageboards, epinions.com, carreviews.com, etc. Maybe I should have made it clear that both have the same power....although I did say this same exact thing in a post. All I can say is there are some real hardcore V1 supporters. (substitute "freak" in for "hardcore?")
Yeah you got me, the 8500 is not a machine -I should've said device.

p.s. http://www.airliners.net

SilverBullet_RENAMED

Let me tell you something Boeing. The V1 should be sensitive to signals instead of not being. It picks UP BETTER that way. But my PASSPORT 8500 had it for 6-8 months, took a 1500 mile trip with it, did great. But I decided to sell it and get the V1. I take routes every day that has a cop sitting almost in the same spot. The V1 caught that guy at least 1 mile earlier. The passport barely gave me notice, maybe 50 yards.

The V1 is much better overall with the new version 1.8. The 1.7 version I will agree did false alot, but it was 10 yr old software in it. They just updated it, and now mine doesn't even beep unless its neccessary.

I have everything turned on actually and never turned any settings off including X.

Neech

Ken, Shawn, why do you bother with these carbon copy debates over which radar detector is best. We know which is best. Let them rant and exaggerate. Let us bask in the knowledge that we have the best edge on the road w/ the V1!

p.s. and my trusty laser jammer. (oh lord, what comments will that bring)

Shawn S

It makes the time go faster at work.

sidemarker

i have a passport 8500 and it does its job about 90% of the time but i do regret not coughing up the extra bill to get a V1

IMHO get the v1

sidemarker

JokerABC

from the Edmunds Townhall messageboard on radar/lidar:

You've got to be careful about the tests published out there though because there are some bias issues. I know Valentine always rips any review by Craig Peterson because he 'consults' for companies that compete with Valentine. But then Valentine has Patrick Bedard, Sr. Editor of Car and Driver, as a 'consultant' on their payroll and thus you have to take their test results with a grain of salt. And of course all Car magazines get advertising dollars from the folks whose products they are testing, so impartiality is always in question.



any replies/comments/thoughts on this?

Universe93B

Car&Driver takes loads of ad $ from Valentine and C&D's chief editor Patrick Bedard is supposed to be on Valentines payroll as a 'consultant'.

Any review on radar detectors is suspect.

Klamalama

So they both advertise on C&D.

Bottom line: even if Passport, or anybody else, has sensitivity and selectivity equal or slightly better then V1 I would still choose V1 because it has 2 antennas and directional arrows. Let someone else duplicate these features at a lower price and I'll listen. Until then the V1 is the undisputed King.

kensteele

You'll never see me quote the magazine test when it comes to results. My results come from the real-world experience with the devices.

Shawn S

So now you want to disqualify everything that Car & Driver tests while taking money from the contestants ???
I guess that would include EVERY car manufacturer too since they all have ads in the magazine.

The Patrick Bedard suspicion is an interesting angle, but it’s nowhere near as the blatant paying by ESCORT for the RADARTEST results.

Shawn S

Red Rider

Same arguments as usual. For me the directional arrows alone give the V1 a huge advantage.

Universe93B

andre idzikoweski detector test in Car And Driver (February 2001) is completely predictable; Car and Driver has made a career of denigrating any other detector besides the V1 starting in March, 1995. They only praise the valentine one and degrading the other detectors because they didn’t have dual antenna or arrows. Not caring about anything else. Never mind the Passport 8500 falses 3 to 4 times less often to false signals.
v1 operates with a single control knob and lever, just like the volume and one controls of the traditional american car radio. That’s it, no extra features, no dimming bottons, no extra options which are seen in the less expensive models with tons of less expensive price tags, just you and the arrows. As another magazine editor told us, v1 "is a box with one knob.” Never mind that its been out for 10 years and no research or money has gone into updating the outside of this detector.


so it doesn't get credit in his features chart for having more and better features than its competitor the v1. If you look closely at the article the v1 gets about 1/3 of the page which speaks of its arrows and other “unique” abilities. Big deal! The passport 8500 gets less than half of the 1/3 of a page. In fact the passport 8500 gets almost no credit for having 12 different user features and again a better filtering system. does this test seem fair to you? It doesn't get credit for being more user friendly either.

Shawn S

OH GOD….LET IT END.

I need a commission from Valentine One before I waste my time responding to all the inaccuracies that last post. :shakehd: :shakehd: :shakehd:

Shawn S

Shotgun3131

Someone stop the insanity!

:whocares:

ajram

Sorry to dig this one back up, but I have a question:

Has anyone had a problem with a Bel unit beeping constantly (with nothing to set it off). I am on my second Bel (currently an 855sti), and it will go off at a level of 1, on K and Ka, for miles at a time. My previous Bel did the same thing, after a couple of years of use, so I bought this one. Now, after a couple of years, this damn thing is doing it.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I wish I had taken the money I spent on these two units, and purchased a V1. I would have had almost enough left over to buy a set of those OBX headers! Ha ha.