My Radar Detector Test: Escort v Valentine 1
 

I’ve had an Escort 8500 (mine) and a Valentine 1 (friend’s) for a week and have been using them both at the same time, including on a recent 400 mile road trip for work. FYI, the Escort costs $250 and the Valentine $400 (that last sentence could get me in big trouble with my wife if taken out of context).

Anyway, I though I would write up my own personal review since this is such a regular topic. Here’s the short version: Escort is good but Valentine is better in all respects but one (read below).

FEATURES: The directional arrows on the Valentine by themselves make this the better detector. Knowing where the signal is coming from is a great feature, and I didn’t realize how helpful this was until I had it. The Valentine also has a bogey counter so you know how many signals it’s tracking.

Both are easy to use and have a mute button. Valentine has a better mute feature because it has a separate volume knob to set the volume level once the mute button is pushed. On the Escort, once the mute button is pushed it completely silences the audible alert.

The Escort allows you to disable a particular band whereas, from what I could tell, the Valentine does not. I leave the X band enabled on my Escort but, if it had that feature, I would disable X band on the Valentine. Reason being the Valentine picks up A LOT of signals on X band, but cops around here don’t use it. As a result, the Valentine chirps quite a bit around the city from X band signals whereas the Escort (with X band enabled) is quiet. I realize it’s a catch 22 because the detector is supposed to signal when it receives something, but I wish I could disable the X band on the Valentine. The constant X band chirping was the one thing I didn’t like about the Valentine.

RADAR/LASER PERFORMANCE:

Laser: I never received any laser signals so I can’t comment.

Ka: The Valentine ALWAYS picked these up about a second or two seconds before the Escort. In one instance, I received a single Ka chirp, 5 seconds later a weak continuous Ka chirp, 2 seconds later the Escort finally signaled Ka. I then crest the hill and see a cop there. That being said, the Escort always gave me enough advance warning that I could slow down before I was in range or sight of the cop.

K: Both detectors picked these up at the same time, although every once in a while the Valentine picked them up a second quicker. Both gave me plenty of advance K signal warning.

X: Never seen a cop use X band so I can’t comment.

Bottom line: Both detectors gave plenty of advance warning, although the Valentine was better on Ka. The directional arrows on the Valentine are a must have feature. I only wish it didn’t false such much on X.

Drew
92 C2

You can disable X band on the valentine, at least on the newer models. See the website for details. There are two modes of logic which will filter out x band alerts, and on the special programmable features, I believe you can take it out entirely.

Thanks for the input though, I am currently running the Valentine next to an older K40, and coming to the same conclusions.

Jared

Jared: thanks for the clarification. It's a brand new Valentine 1, but I don't have the manual for it. I did have it set on the max X band filter mode (L) though.

Drew, Thanks so much for your info. Very valuable. I personally own a year old passport 8500 and was always wondering about doing a side by side test like you did.

I must admit that although my 8500 has always (so far...) picked up Ka well in advance of danger, I am always wondering and frantically looking around when ever it goes off for Ka, where are the police? The directional arrows would be of benefit for me personally.

thx again.