Passport Max 360 vs. Valentine One Radar Detector
The reign of Valentine One’s Radar Locator and Bogey Counter has finally come to an end – Radar Roy
The Valentine One’s differentiator in the radar detector industry has been their patented dual antenna design, their forward, rear and side facing arrows and their Boggy counter.
But back in February of 2011 Mike Valentine’s patent expired and now Escort has released a new detector that significantly improves on Mike’s design called the Escort Passport Max 360.
Military Strategists Agree - Technology is the Key!
Since its inception back in 1992, the only point of difference between the Valentine One and all the other radar detectors have been Valentine’s front and rear dual antenna design and their arrows.
But Valentine Research’s biggest failure was Mike Valentine’s inability to innovate and to embrace new technology and painted himself into a corner by touting his detector as being the last detector you would ever need to buy.
Because of this the V1 does not have GPS, still uses older LED lights, still uses tone alerts, has no social media connectivity, cannot be upgraded online and cannot effectively filter out false alerts.
And all military strategies will agree that to win a war, you need to be armed with the latest technology to outmatch your foe.
High Definition OLED Display vs. LED Display
T he most noticeable difference on the outside between the Passport Max 360 and the Valentine One is that the Max 360 uses a multi-colored high definition OLED display instead of antiquated red LED lights.
Because of this the Max 360 is able to provide you with the information about your enemy with forward, rear and side facing arrows which are color coded to the band, intuitive icons that will display the posted speed limit and your current speed, signal strength graph, the ability to display up to 5 bogies at the same time, and even the exact frequency of the threat.
Voice Alerts vs. Tone Alerts
When the Valentine One alerts to a threat it begins beeping a series of distinguishable tones based upon the band. However if you’re not familiar with the various tones, you have to take your eyes off the road and look at a series of small red LED lights with small print to identify the type of threat.
However the Passport Max 360 provides bi-lingual voice alerts in either English or Spanish that clearly identifies the threat so you can keep your attention focused where it should be, on the road ahead of you.
Advanced DSP Technology
All the major radar detector manufactures have incorporated DSP technology into their new line of detectors.
However the engineers at Escort have taken their patent DSP technology with the Max, Max2 and the Max 360 to an even higher level with the development of a new field programmable gate array (FPGA) and ARM chip.
This enables the Passport Max detectors to take an entire snapshot of the police radar bands instantly, instead of scanning each frequency individually, as a police scanner would do.
Then the overhead provided by the FPGA chip allows Escorts DSP technology to instantaneously match the DNA profile of real police radar, while blocking out much of the background noise.
The result is a detector that will give you more timely alerts without having to deal with annoying false alerts.
Anti-Collision Sensor Filtering vs. Junk-K Fighter
The #1 annoyance with most radar detectors today are the overabundance of false alerts caused by the anti-collision sensors installed in new cars as these operate on the same K-band frequency police use.
To combat this issue Valentine has integrated a new feature into their detector called Junk-K fighter, which does filter out most of these false alerts, however it does negatively impact the detectors performance.
Instead the Passport Max360 takes a different approach by integrating their new anti-collision filtering software onto the Max360’s FPGA processor enabling it to identify the DNA signature of most of the vehicle guidance systems used in todays cars in an instant.
The result is that the Passport Max 360 to block out more of these anti-collision sensors without negatively impacting the performance.
GPS Equipped vs. Non GPS Equipped
The Passport Max 360 is GPS equipped and the Valentine One is not.
Because of this the Passport Max360 offers these additional benefits:
- Provide fixed photo enforcement camera alerts
- Provide known speed trap alerts
- Ability to lock out know false alert locations based upon exact location and frequency
- Ability to adjust the sensitivity based upon your speed
- Ability to mark your own hotspots and points of interest
Escort Live vs. YaV1
The biggest advancement in our speed counter measurement industry in this decade is enabling radar detectors to share real time information with each other through the cloud.
 And because Mike Valentine is still stuck in the 80’s, it took the ingenuity of one of their customers to develop something that comes close to doing this, the YaV1 app.
YaV1 in the true sense is NOT a social media type of application, as it does not share alerts and/or historical data through the cloud.
Instead it only allows the user to program the advanced features of their Valentine One, adjust the sensitivity of the detector based upon speed, provide color-coded threats on your phone, provide threat analysis and provide your speed.
Also the YaV1 will only work on Android phones.
In comparison the engineers at Escort have developed a far more advanced system called Escort Live.
The Passport Max360 has an internal Bluetooth chip set, which enables it to connect directly to the Escort Live community through your iPhone and/or Android smartphone.
This enables your Max360 to:
- Alert you of real time police spotted alerts
- Alert you of real time radar and laser speed traps in your area
- Alert you of historical speed trap locations including aircraft enforcement locations
- Alert you of fixed photo enforcement camera locations
- Enables you to program the advanced features of your detector through your smart phone
Online Updates vs. USPS
Whenever you may want to update your Valentine One radar detector you need to first go to their website and pay for the upgrade, stand in line at post office to ship it back to the factory and then wait a couple weeks until it is returned.
However with the Passport Max360 all you need to do is download the Escort Tools program onto your PC or Mac, connect it to your computer with a USB cable and download the latest firmware and database updates direct to your detector.
Is the Extra Investment Worth It?
Yes, the Passport Max 360 is the world’s most expensive windshield mounted radar detector on the market, however it's the best investment you can make which will protect you in receiving an expensive speeding ticket, here is why:
- The Max 360’s ability to block out more false alerts then any other detector
- The Max 360’s ability to pinpoint the exact location of the threat at greater distance then any other detector
- Your ability to download new firmware updates to the online detector, so it never becomes obsolete!
Because of this if you feel you deserve the best then get the best radar detector NOW!
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About Radar Busters
 This site is family owned and founded by "Radar Roy," a retired police officer and certified traffic radar instructor, who is considered a leading expert in the speed counter measurement industry.
To learn more about Roy, read our radar detector reviews, or download our free radar detector eBook click here.
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