Escort Passport 8500 X50 Radar and Laser Detector (Red Display)
by Escort Inc.
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List Price: Our Price: $238.95 You Save: $61.04 (20%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $159.95 (click here) Category: Car Audio or Theater See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Escort Passport 8500 X50 Radar and Laser Detector (Red Display)
Customer Review: Over 5 Years has saved me thousands.
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm on my second one now.
First one, like the reports you see in rating of (1), I too thought it would be OK to leave it out in the blazing hot sun on the dash like the New-Yorker did, and it didn't like it.
Well after almost 5 years of worthy service, it now needs service. I haven't sent it in yet.
You get a clue when it's too xxx hot to even touch.
On 2000 and prior GMC trucks, the power ports stay live with key off. Another bad option with voltage spikes when vehicle is started.
The combination of hot sun and power on sitting in the hot sun, = death.
Would you leave your $400+ camera on the dash in the blazing sun all day? I didn't think so.
Prewire a power run to mount it to visor as an alternate. Now it's out of the sun.
Some states, it's against the law to have any device on the windshield, let alone a detector.
I for one rap mine in a white anti-skid cloth used in drawers, and use no mount. It now never gets hot from the sun, and no one can see it walking by.
It resides in the corner of the dash closest to pillar post. Works just fine.
I also use a remote power port that extends to the drivers side mid panel area to power it, the GPS, and cell phone. This leaves the extra ports open for laptop or camera chargers.
I used to take it off it's mount when going shopping and put it under the seat.
It was then I discovered just how powerful radar is beaming at our brains all day.
I forgot it was still under the seat when it went off. I thought, holy cow, no wonder so many people are retarded being baked live while they drive.
The dimming feature is great at night with the top right button.
Auto mute, another plus where after roughly 3 loud alerts, it scales it back to a quiet mode.
Here's a cool feature I'm sure not many use.
Set the device to display VOLTAGE. It will still display a radar hit, then after your passed the alert zone, it comes back with voltage.
This feature saved me a huge hassle determining a bad Alternator that could of left me stranded in freezing weather.
There was just enough voltage to drive during the day, but when lights came on or heating system fan, then the radar display showed the voltage drop. There were mystery vehicle dead battery moments prior, but over looked.
If your going to Europe, leave device at home. The Left Wing will win.
While I spent much of the last 3 years there, it's all patrolled by camera.
Very Efficient, and no road rage. They will attack in full force if any nonsense is noticed.
With the little contact I had with them professionally, they are pretty cool.
While in Holland, I noticed a local TV station (only in Dutch) showing people getting pulled over, and the officers have some special device that sniffs out the drivers sneaky hiding spots where they try to hide their device.
They quickly find the device, rip it out and make the driver drive over it, and give them a fine besides.
Maybe someone here knows just what this technology is they use over there.
But radar detectors are mostly worthless because of cameras.
As long as it works here, I will never drive without it.
You just might need a heads up as to where they are when you do need their help.
As for Laser, I maybe notice 5 out of 500 hits that are laser.
You will get notice even if it glances off target vehicle, but if it's aimed at you, game over.
Overall, if it saves you one ticket, it paid for itself.
One ticket, ends up being 20 when insurance sends you the increase.
For those who did get a ticket, it might not be the detector that missed it.
A random single burst hit is all that's needed to pull you over, VS a constant on radar.
This actually happened, and I had the detector for less than 6 hours going to Palm Desert California from Mpls. 2000 miles.
I almost denied the single alert, in a 3 car rally, but moved to the slow lane anyway w/o brakes, downshifted beamer going 90+. and a moment later, squad came up w/o any lights on in the dark going over a hundred, slammed on his brakes in left lane looking for the one he targeted.
Now that would of left a mark.
Customer Review: Very Good
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had passport/escort detectors since about 1992. I got my X50 back in January 2005. It replaced a passport 4500. The X50 has worked great, and it has several customizable features. You have to go in and manually set these options, but this detector can display the radar frequency it is detecting (for example, it may display: Ka 35.6 GHZ), and it can also track multiple radar frequencies (up to 2 Ka, 2 K, and 4 X) at the same time and display their singnal strength in vertical bar graphs. I am not aware that any other detector can do this. So you pick to use either the "standard" signal strength meter for the strongest signal (horizontal signal strength bar), "expert" mode that tracks multiple radars at the same time (verticle signal strength bars), or "frequency" that displays the radar band and frequency. For the frequency setting, there is no signal strength displayed like the other 2 settings so you have to listen to the beep, beep, beeps to know when the signal increases.
I will focus on repair and maintenance issues not covered in other posts. Over the last year, mine has been acting up--did not detect K band some of the time and would go haywire with a full K or KA alert and stay there until I unplugged it from the cigarette socket. Even before all of this, the pop mode would constantly go off with false alerts so I kept pop mode set to OFF. The automatic door locks would set off the LASER alert. On an average road trip going 15 miles through town, I would get about 4 pop false alerts. I sent it in for repair a few weeks ago, and it was $59. It was returned with a post card indicating what was done. They replaced the antenna and recalibrated. I say all of this to say that all the passport detectors I have owned start to go crazy after about 4-5 years. I would count on that being the lifespan before needing service. Ok. Now I have the X50 with the new antenna and recalibration. Wow. This thing has quieted down. I have driven with this for 4 full days in urban and rural areas with no false pop alerts. I just had 1 false pop alert today on the 5th day. Big difference from having 4 or 5 pop alerts in 1 day. Maybe the new models that are out now are much better than my old 2005 model. When I first got this in 2005 before needing service, the pop alerts always went off. The fact that mine is a lot quieter in pop mode after the service tells me that maybe they have made some improvements to pop mode. FYI pop mode is set to OFF as the default. You have to go in and turn it ON.
The biggest issue with any passport detector is their city mode. Hopefully Escort will figure this out. City mode ONLY reduces X band sensitivity. It does nothing to K band. Well, just about all, and I mean all, of the automatic doors at shopping centers around here use K band. So city mode is worthless.
Update: I have driven with this 19 days since getting it back from service (new antenna + recalibration), and I have only had 1 false POP alert. I have POP set to On, and I am driving in both urban and rural areas. This serviced X50 has fewer false POP alerts now than when I got it new in 2005. When it was new, I had to turn POP off because of all the false POP alerts. Now it works better. I am more careful about power surges and not having the unit on while turning the car on or off. Power surges will shorten the life.
3/29/11 LASER- I have read that laser detection on most detectors is worthless, and the X50 is also worthless. It does great on radar bands but not laser. Our local police were set-up on an overpass using a laser gun 2 days ago and were targeting cars at about 1,500 feet (no more, no less due to topography). I thought I would test the laser detection. The only time it went off was when I was zapped. I went by about 4 times and circled around going in the opposite direction 4 times while cars in the other lane were zapped. I went across on the overpass behind the laser (about 15 feet away). I also went on a side street perpendicular to the highway where the laser was being shot with the detector antenna pointed that way. It never went off except the time I was zapped.
Customer Review: Excellent, but not awesome.
Summary: 4 Stars
It is a very good detector, don't get me wrong, but here is my experience:
The detector arrived dirty, scratched, and parts of the inside box were broken. It was a factory sealed item purchased new from Amazon. Now, I assume that Escort just mistakenly repackaged a return or something so I sent it back for a refund. No big deal. I am just relaying this as part of my personal experience; I did not factor this into my rating of 4/5 stars.
The 4/5 star rating is a result of the following performance: perfect performance when you are just about to be caught. There really isn't much advance warning here. We're talking seconds. In one case I didn't hear anything until the radar was on me (I know he had instant radar but I still wish I would have got a warning a mile or so back when presumably the cop was gunning someone else with instant-on) but luckily I wasn't going quite fast enough for it to be worth his trouble to pull me over.
There were 2 times on my most recent long road trip where this detector saved me from a ticket for a 100% fact. So, that's great. Hey, it already paid for itself, right? Well, yes, but each of the two times I got the warning literally one long second (seriously, one second) and it took my lightning quick reflexes to slam on the brakes. The next second the cop came into view and his gun was on me. So, I mean, you have to be like me and be quick draw Mcgraw or you are toast. I am only 29 years old. I'm not sure if I could act so quickly if I were, say, 59 years old.
In 99.2% of the other cases where this detector goes off it is a false alarm or some unknown device somehwere off the highway setting it off. The other .7% of the time it is real cops but they are not engaged in speed-trapping (could be already pulling someone over, working a wreck, giving a trucker a hard time, etc) and .1% of the time it is legit like I addressed in the previous paragraph.
Oddly enough I have experienced far more false alarms (like 10 to 1) in the country than in the city. This thing is virtually silent in the city and hardly ever goes off. In the middle of nowhere, however, it throws false alarms at least once every 5 minutes. Seriously. It gets to where you learn the different pitches and know which ones to take seriously. Most cops don't use the old school radar anymore, but things that use that band still set the detector off every few minutes. This can actually get annoying at times, but thankfully virtually all of the false alarms are announced in the high-pitch "standard old-school" radar tone which I have never seen a modern cop even use to catch speeders. So you learn what to ignore by pitch but I still wish I had less to ignore.
So, was it worth the money? Absolutely. Could it be better? Absolutely. 1 second warning time is not enough. It was enough for me but like I said I have a hair trigger on the brake pedal. I kept thinking of the cordless model that everyone says is slower response than this model. If that really was true I would have gotten 2 tickets in the past month. This one barely did the job as a mentioned. So on paper in a purely technical sense it was 2 for 2 which means perfect. I just think it could be a little better for the reasons I laid out.
Remember to unplug your detector and put it in the glovebox when driving through Virginia. Simply unplugging is not enough. They are illegal period, even if not turned on. You will also encounter this in most Canadian provinces. Sorry for the long review but this stuff is really interesting to me and if you have read this far evidently it is to you, too.
Drive safely and observe all posted speed limits!
Customer Review: A nice upgrade.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my third radar detector from Escort and my second Passport. I owned one of the original Escorts as well as the original Passport. The original Passport served me well for 20 years, but I recently took a job that put me on the road much more, so I decided it was time for an upgrade.
I had planned on purchasing a Valentine One, but after reading the reviews here and elsewhere I decided to go with the Passport. It seems it affords the same protection at a much lower price. Additionally, it has some nice features the Valentine doesn't. For example, it automatically reduces the sounds of the alerts after warning you. I understand, this needs to be done manually on the Valentine.
Additionally, if you would like to run in stealth mode, you can turn off the display on the unit and use the lights on the cigarette lighter as the indicator. (You can also mute the alarm from the cigarette lighter plug). With the Valentine, this is an extra cost add on.
I think the arrows on the Valentine would be nice, but I wasn't willing to pay that much more for them.
It does have laser detection, but my understanding is that unless you incorporate a laser jammer, it doesn't do you much good. Escort does sell a jammer that does integrate with the Passport 8500, so this is another plus if you need laser protection.
I have read some reviews that says Amazon is not an authorized dealer. I contacted Escort before my purchase and they told me that if purchased directly from Amazon you are fine. With some of the resellers, that may not be the case. This is important if you ever have a problem with the unit as they only honor warranties from purchases from authorized resellers.
As far as the red versus blue goes, I would have liked the blue display, but it is only cosmetic and the purpose of a radar detector is function. That being said, if you are going to buy a radar detector, buy a good one. The Passport 8500, the Valentine One and there is a highly rated Bel detector that will serve you well. Most of the rest will just tell you when you're about to recieve a ticket.
Finally regarding the cigarette lighter functionality. It is only useful if the cigarette ligher is visible from the drivers seat. In two of my cars it is hidden by the steering wheel, limiting it usefulness.
All in all, I'm pleased with the purchase. I paid less for this than I did for the original 20 years ago.
3/25/2010 - just a note: I did end up with a ticket using this. It was from a well place motorcycle officer on a curve using laser. What surprised me is that the warning was enough I was able to scrub over 5 miles an hour off my speed. (With laser you are warned you are about to get a ticket unless you have a laser jammer, unlike radar which gives you a much longer warning). If I had realized the speed limit was so low, I might have been able to scrub some more. As it was he only got me for 71 when I was doing close to 80 when the laser hit me.
The range is pretty incredible. I have started picking up radar well over a mile before I see the patrol car.
Customer Review: Complete Radar Detection Package for $300.00 or so.
Summary: 5 Stars
After reviewing the specs, features and real-time performance the Escort-Passport 8500 x50 unit offers, I simply had to upgrade to a REAL, user-friendly, out-of-the-box & ready for business radar detector. This is THE unit to have if you want to stay within the $300.00 price point, if not, buy the 9500ix, and OWN the road you travel. With a comprehensive and verified list of outstanding features including a microprocessor that is upgradeable (COOL; would have been really COOL about 10 yrs ago), consistent road-tests and evaluations that produce measureable and observable results along with the on-going praise and "Outstanding Performance" reviews relative to measuring, verifying and explaining all of the features and functions the Escort 8500 x50 proudly claims to have from Radar Roy's Site (his reviews are highly favorable of course), coupled with the numerous real world driving experiences and favorable reviews from a friend, my brief 'test-drive' with this unit was all that was needed to convince me to switch from an older, dated Whistler model to something that was actually manufactured this decade that really does offers an easy-to-program unit that will outperform anything you've been using (unless, you've already crossed the $300.00 threshold).
This particular unit combines nearly everything required for true 'protection' and 'detection' of multiple radar units utilzing virtualy all available frequencies and gadgets regardless of road or weather conditions. It's a true "Long Range" model that has provided me with more than ample time to 'adjust' my current driving situation. I use the Expert Mode to access a easy-to-see and understand visual graph depicting info on up to 8 bogeys along with their related strength meters; the Smart-Cord is just that, listen to it or mute and continue; the minimal 'false' alarms is a welcome relief from other previously utilized units and the choice of 'colors' (red or blue) is helpful as well. I selected the RED unit as it is still common practice for current military vehicles, aircraft and boats or other situations requiring adequate night or low-light vision to use RED lights. Red light measures about 700 nm; Blue light about 400-500 nm. Thus, they occupy nearly opposite ends of the 'light spectrum' we as humans can perceive. As we have both rods and cones for visual perception / function / acuity, using RED light allows the rods to work under low light situations or 'scotopic' (dark vision situations i.e. cockpit of your ride)instead of relying on cones, whose job is bright, day light work with color discrimination. Blue LOOKS COOL and IS; RED is FUNCTIONAL and logical; operational. Buy this one or the 9500ix, PERIOD. A Great Device. A.Womack