Valentine v1.8 w/ POP K and Ka

NOTE TO ALL THE VIEWERS

I've read many reviews about the Escort x50 and noticed the various comparisons between it and the Valentine. I am assuming that everyone knows that the range of the x50 and the Valentine are both excellent and compare very similar to each other. I've had both detectors, and in the end I preferred the Valentine for numerous reasons. Although I've owned the x50 for a shorter amount of time, it earned me a 300 dollar speeding ticket and the lack of false alarms made me constantly worry if the false alarms that actually showed up were true or not. I was frightened beyond anything imaginable when it comes to the security of a radar detector. I guess I'm gonna break down this review in multiple sections to tell you why I prefer the Valentine 1 over the X50.

FALSE ALARMS: When it comes to false alarms, Valentine falses at least 2x as more than the x50. I contacted Valentine Technical Research to complain to them about this and they gave me a straight forward reason why this happens. The engineer explain his reasoning behind the increase in false alarms stating that this due to the new POP technology. POP and Instant On radar have very similar characteristics. They operate on the same principle but the exception with POP is that it triggers a 60 millisecond Microburst per reading in comparison with Instant On's triggering window of 150 milliseconds.

In relevance to the false alarms, the sensitivity of the current manufactured Valentine is now made to be more sensitive to recognize MPH POP characteristics. Other radar detectors (most specifically Cobra Radar Detectors) radiating K and X radar frequencies trigger the Valentine which also increases the false alarm characteristics. These radar detectors whom emit these frequencies are similar to the characteristics of POP K band. So with POP protection of the Valentine, it also picks up excess radar signals for other radar detectors and the varying false alarm radars you would find in urban areas. POP's miniscule burst of radar is hard to detect, so hard that Valentine Research increases the sensitivity of the current radars that they are producing today because according the research tech I talked to, he stated that the radiation of radar detectors and POP are very similar. Research is in progress to fix the false alarms and keep the sensitivity of POP K and Ka at the same time. Ever since the POP technology came out, there have been two software revisions to decrease false alarms and I currently have the second one, which has decreased the amount of false alarms significantly but it could still use some more work. A third software revision is still in research.

Now with the x50, the reason why it falses so much less is because it picks up only police radar. It's smart, it rejects all other radar because it was programmed only to recognize certain frequencies and as a result the false alarm of this unit is "almost" precise and the false alarms are greatly decreased only compared to the Valentine. It Highway mode, its give more gray area to explore and sensitivity at higher levels and City mode frequencies are thoroughly screened before appearing on the LCD.

So what do I think about this? Frankly I don't mind false alarms. Anyone who owns a radar detector can read their radar detector like a book, and I am assuming I'm no exception. Usually you can tell from your own judgements which are real and which are false alarms. However, during my trial of the new x50, I took each radar signal recognized with high anxiety because of natural skepticm you would have in a new radar. False alarms are minimal on the x50 but not minimal enough to realize that everything that appears on the LCD Matrix is always the police. So everytime I see a radar signal on the display I was constantly scared. More afraid than the false alarm of my Valentine because I was able to read my Valentine very well.

Features: Escort has the basic display which is useful to get by, but the Valentine explains alot of information simultaneously all at the same time. Both radars display the type of band, how many are present, and the strength. The upper hand of each radar is Valentine's directional arrows, and the x50's frequency.

In my opinion, I don't know anything about frequency (like most users I assume) and so its useless to me, Plus as the frequency is displayed, you cannot see the strength of the radar while the frequency is displayed throughout its entire warning and audio tones are the main source of dependency, which is a major downside. Also the multiple radar tracked on the Escort is displayed by tiny bars that I found to be hard to see, maybe this was because I was constantly over analyzing the strength of the radar and produced more anxiety because of the x50's ergonomics with this feature turned on. Valentine displays all its information at the same time, it can also be read quickly and I found no really big problems reading the radar signals, number of signals and strength. At night, you cannot read which band it is detecting but usually you recognize the position of the red display illuminated and the audio tones to recognize which band is being detected. I found the Valentine to be more user friendly and informational.

The sounds both radars are pretty well. Although the x50 does have an advantage of the option of having loud tones, or ungodly ear piercing warnings if you choose to. I found that pretty helpful because of the sound system I installed in my car.

RANGE: I am assuming anyone who reads this article obviously knows the excellent range both radar detectors are capable of detecting so I shall not go into detail about the range and I will give you more information on REAL LIFE observations I have made on the ranges of both detectors. I found that in a straight line, both the x50 and the Valentine have excellent ranges on all three bands, defintely no complaint on either of them. I had the oppurtunity to test them against a standing radar post, and I despite what all the reviewers say, I noticed that Valentine was stronger in the K by 1/8 of mile compared to the x50. But all in all all the ranges of detectors seem very similar. However, I noticed that the side protection is greatly decreased on the x50. Standing at the stationary post, I noticed at only 1/8 of a mile away, when my car turned completely perpindicular to the post, that ALL detection of the K band disappeared! Which really influenced my decision in choosing the V1. V1 had picked up the signal at 3/4 strength bars. And when driving away from the stationary radar, I noticed that the signal of the x50 disappeared about 1/8 of a mile sooner than the Valentine. Let me also add that I had encountered a state trooper using instant on Ka and as I passed the Valentine, it had still detected full strength from reading the radar at a mile away. That got me completely sold on my unit. I was also detected by Laser while driving with the V1 which gave me proper notification. There's not much else you can do with a Laser signal

In my opinion, even though people say the x50 has better range frontwards, I think that The Valentine has the better range when it came to 360 degree protection but the front range is still superior.

In conclusion I chose the Valentine for these reasons: Better range all around, Better displayed information, and oddly its false alarms. Also the 300 dollar speeding ticket with the x50 helped aid in my decision.