Hot off the presses for the RD.NET members!
Escort Passport 9500i Review
This is one seriously cool detector.
Enjoy!
Veil Guy 8)
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Hot off the presses for the RD.NET members!
Escort Passport 9500i Review
This is one seriously cool detector.
Enjoy!
Veil Guy 8)
Super good review.
Appreciate the review. Very Cool.
Great write up and review!
Just released cool. Informative as always !
Great review Bob. You are one lucky man to have one so soon :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
Bob,
When you lock out a false signal and say a cop is about 1/4 of mile farher down operating the same band that you locked out does the 9500i still alert to that band?
thats my questionQuote:
Originally Posted by happya$$
crazyVOLVOrob,
I did not specifically encounter a situation with real traffic radar (operated by an officer) after the initial muting.
The closest situation to your scenario was one speed sign followed by one radar drone sign that was separated by around that distance, the 9500i did alert to the additional source, requiring me to mute out the additional signal as well. Both signs were operating on K-band.
As I get more drive time with the 9500i, I will follow-up with you, my findings.
Veil Guy 8)
Excellent review!! Man, I can't wait to get mine!!!! :D
Dep
Nice, in-depth review. It's the first I've read of the speed features. I thinkthe speed-relative sensitivity is a good idea.
Marking non-radar locations like vascar traps is not very useful as you already know about them and already slow down for them. This becomes useful if they offer a central database or some other way to easily share local knowlege locations among a trusted group.
It sounds like sensitivity is a down a bit though. Looking forward to the real comparison tests among production units.
jwardell,
Point well taken. The thing I like about marking known traps like VASCAR is that in routine driving, I can sometimes be caught off guard and not paying close attention to the threats about. My wife could also be driving and she generally doesn't pay attention to such things.
Getting a database preloaded, I agree, would be more useful and, of course, that the real promise of this new technology.
In so far as sensitivity, I would certainly expect this to have been well resolved prior to hitting production (along with any other tweaks/refinements)...And it wasn't off by that much.
Veil Guy 8)
Sounds awesome..Should be receiving mine from Escort within a couple of weeks...Can't wait :D
Very nice review.......
Would you say that the 9500i has less tendency to false to POP
then the X50. I know the X50 has some major issues
with POP.
Orbital75,
I don't think I have had one false POP alert yet.
I have gone between having POP enabled and POP disabled for performance comparison purposes.
I'll keep an eye on it and follow-up with you.
Veil Guy 8)
Have you had any problems acquiring/holding SAT (GPS) signal in your experience???Quote:
Originally Posted by The Veil Guy
Yes a couple of days now.
One day's experience reported in [updated] write-up - very cloudy.
The next day's experience not reported [yesterday] in write-up - partly cloudy.
Veil Guy 8)
Thanks.... I look forward to your finds.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Veil Guy
The new 9500i looks like a great detector
that just may change a lot of other manufacturers
models as well. I would say this is defently revolutionary
and will change the high end detector market.
We all need to thank Uniden because they paved the way for this technology to be used in a radar detector. I am curious to see how the 9500i will do. There are some tough tests that it must pass first though before I am fully on boardQuote:
Originally Posted by Orbital75
From reviews I have read on the 9500, when you mark a false alert the 9500 of course remembers the location using the GPS, but it also remembers the radar frequency of the false alert.Quote:
Originally Posted by happya$$
A police radar unit in the same location would not likely have the same frequency of the offending "False" alert. The 9500 would will still warn you about the presence of a "New" signal at that location.
Bob, thanks for the review.
Can you tell us how many speedtraps this unit can hold? I have not seen anyone with a deffinate answer to this yet. I would like to know so I could put the White Vascar Blocks into the detector if I was to get it. Yet I would not want to fill the detector up with them.
Also how many false signals can the 9500i block untill it's full?
As far as GPS loosing signal, I mentioned this, I knew it would happen as it does with all GPS devices.
My GPS devices rarely if ever loose signal. I don't feel that is common at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by StlouisX50
Does your GPS have an outside antenna?Quote:
Originally Posted by nascar
I read somewhere that it is 5000...Quote:
Originally Posted by StlouisX50
The 9500i and the Garmin C320 do not have outside or external antennas. The TL's navigation does.Quote:
Originally Posted by StlouisX50
I would bet that the GPS with the outside antenna would not drop GPS tracking in Cloudy, Heavy Foliage, Snow ect. as much as the ones without one though.
I believe it all depends on your altitude too.
When I had 2 GPS units here in Missouri I would drop a GPS signal if it was cloudy, snowing or raining. However when I took trips to other states I could see in the settings mode how much stronger the GPS signal was.
I have Tom Tom and it occasionally loses GPS signals. Same was true of Navalert (when I had it). Both use internal antennas, although Tom Tom offers an external/internal (windshield) antenna. I understand the 9500i uses a different/more efficient style of satellite reception. Evidently there are two different kinds and one is more efficient than the other.
Dep
All depends on how many GPS sats it receives too. Some GPS's don't pickup all GPS sats for some reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by Deputy
I've owned about 7 or 8 GPS units in the past several years.
The SiRFstar III chip that began showing up around last summer (about the size of a nickel with antenna) is far faster and has the ability to get a signal even inside my house where the older units would not. Works far better in dense foilage and overcast conditions as well.
The chip is used in Microsoft's Streets & Trips 2007 program if you get it with their Pharo's GPS unit. It's also in the Garmin Zumo unit for motorcycles and, I believe, their Nuvi line(?).
It used to be that it took 20 minutes for the older Garmin units to intialize to a new location in the U.S. from the Taiwan plant. Now it's seconds with the new chip. More stuff on this fantastic chip is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiRFstar_III
I'm amazed the Escort put this chip in their unit so quick. It's not a cheap chip. Their teaming with Garmin must have had something to do with it for several years. They've integrated it very well, enough so that Popular Mechanics gave it their Editor's Choice Award for outstanding achievement in new product design and innovation at the Las Vegas CES show.
In essense, "It is like the second coming of Jesus Christ" (taken from those who cannot tolerate anything other than some other obsolete brand technology that isn't quiet!).
statusquo: Thanks for the details on that chip. Knew someone had details about it. HEY!! You DO realize that there is a surcharge on using my quotes in your sig line :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Dep...charges $5 per memorable quote
Check's in the mail. :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Deputy
LOL... :lol: :lol: :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by statusquo
Dep
Good review. But I have two concerns. One, has Escort solved the laser falsing around airports? I sold my older 8500 because it falsed so much I though it was dying. I bought the X50 and it falses as well. It stays in nearly constant laser alert mode for about a mile before and after I pass a local airport. It does the same thing anywhere within a mile of the airport in Indianapolis. That area is heavily patrolled, but my $300 Escort is useless to me during that time. I'd be really po'd if I spent $450 and had the same problem.
Secondly, where is the GPS antenna located? I also have a BMW (740iL) and it has an IR coating on the windshield. There's a window in the coating low on the windshield and centered where I mount my X50. But the area directly above the X50 is coated. I know from experience with another GPS system I have that the signals will not pass through the coating. I would think a similar problem would be encountered by those folks who mount their detectors very high on the windshield. The roof of the car may block the GPS antenna, so location of the antenna would be critical. (EDIT: After more reading here, it appears high mounting is not an issue.)
Another concern about anything which calculates speed by GPS is whether or not that data is stored for any amount of time. If so, the very tool you buy to help you avoid tickets could end up "testifying" against you. I'll be very interested to see how much access the software gives you to data.
Given the limited amount of memory on the detector, I'd be very surprised if it stored speed or average speed records.Quote:
Originally Posted by M_Six
That being said, I've never heard of anyone's GPS navigation system being subpoenaed for such records.
Not yet, but black boxes are becoming the norm in cars and car rental agencies have been known to use GPS data to charge renters extra for speeding. My point is, if you are involved in an accident, whether it's your fault or not, any evidence the police find will most likely be used against you. Better to know ahead of time where such evidence may be acquired.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordhamster
Newark International is not close but not all that far from me. I have had the same Laser experience there as you. So I am curios as well. I will try to get over there this week to see what happens. I know I will be in the area next Friday for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by M_Six
The 9500i uses the new GPS chip set; SiRF III. I am not sure how it will work in your car but it is the best at quickly acquiring and it has never dropped out on me yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by M_Six
If you own a late model car, the car's computer already does that and is far more accessible for legal purposes.Quote:
Originally Posted by M_Six
I wouldn't worry about the detector being used to store data against you, imo.
I mentioned that. The whole black box issue is going to change the auto insurance industry. As soon as black boxes become the norm and the data becomes accessible by the insurance industry, you'll start seeing claims denied for speeding infractions regardless of who's at fault in the accident. "Sorry, you were doing 60 in a 55 just prior to the accident. Claim denied." I can hear them now.Quote:
Originally Posted by statusquo
And I agree with you, the danger from the detector is probably slim to none. Still, I'd like to know exactly what data, if any, gets stored. And if the GPS device itself is trackable. Knowledge is good.
Has anyone found a place to upload/share GPS marked locations exported out of the Passport 9500i so that when traveling to another city, we know when to be more careful of our driving habits?
I checked the Passport_9500i Yahoo group, but that group is so new that no one has shared any uploaded waypoints yet. It seems like there should be some place that we can share our data.
To my knowledge, Escort has not released anything USB related. Has someone hacked it already? :D