[MartinJ]

As far as many people are concerned there are basically 2 choices:

The Valentine V1 is real nice and has kept me out of trouble driving my son's VW GTI. Personally I did not find the arrows to be that helpful. (i.e., when there is a radar signal slow down!).

I also have a an Escort Passport 8500 in my Benz which is direct wired, and I just added an Escort Solo S2 to the Boxster. Both these units perform real well. I bought the Solo S2 to avoid having to worry about wires, the unit is quite small and I mounted it high up on the windshield just to the left of the rear view mirror. You have to remember to turn it on when you get in the car, it has a motion sensor and turns itself off so that helps the batteries. Battery life is good (I carry a coupe of spares).

In my over 10 years of using detectors I have that the cheap ones are useless don't buy them. The audio warnings get little attention but I find that I tune myself into the audible warnings quite well so get one that has different tunes for different signals (X, K, Ka) and that increases the volume as it gets closer, that way you will train yourself not to have to look at the display. The Auto lowering of the sound for long threats is neat feature (Escort has it, I don’t know about others) since it cuts down on the noise when a Cop is following close behind with is speed gun going.

Make sure you get one that allows you to at least turn off X-Band detection (Some units allow you to set a sensitivity level – my preference) other wise you will live in the land of beeps if you live in a built up area (door openers etc give out a lot of signals)

The Escort units claim laser detection but from what I’ve read once you get the warning it is to late so I don’t pay attention to that feature. Maybe I will eventually go all the way and get a PassportSR7.

So far 30+ years of enthusiastic driving has got me one ticket, and that was when I was driving one of my cars without a detector!