$350 refurb; $420 brand new; so $70 price difference for a 90 day warranty vs 1 year warranty; $55 for the 1 year warranty; so to get the refurb with 1 year warranty you’re saving $20 off buying brand new.
Soak that in.
It’s fun how many of these refurbs are floating around. I wouldn’t touch this with a ten foot pole. Uniden seems to be having a lot of issues with quality control on the R7. Feel free to search reddit to read the countless stories of the pre-order R7s dying within days of owning, then the replacement device also dying within months. Hope the $20 in savings were worth it.
For that kind of money, do yourself a favor and buy a Valentine One. They have a history producing a product that’s worth that kind of money. Just my $0.02.
I agree with v015eyjd. AND, let me add, I’d stay way from ESCORT. I’ve got two 9500IX’s and since todays cars have those collision avoidance systems, they are annoying as heck. Don’t get me wrong, they work but you have to get used to all the Jeeps, Hondas, minivans and a host of others setting it off. And so do traffic flow monitors at intersections. Even the newer ones are as bad from what I’ve seen on forums. Sad thing is, they still sell them for like $300. But from the looks of this detector and the V1, I’d go with the V1. Tried and true and battle tested.
Vortex Radar at youtube has a great very in depth reviews on the v1 and v1 -2 and the R7 as well as all the other radars. Both V1 -2 and R7 are about neck and neck. v1-2 is hard to find used., so R7 is a great value now.
If someone has the crash avoidance system (as my Kia Niro EV does), would they be constantly getting false alerts and/or reduced range for legitimate alerts?
Yes. That system employs radar in order to detect cars nearby. It’s how it works. It’s also similar to that which police use - and what these devices pick up.
The better ones do so less (fewer false positives), but it still happens.
To reiterate, the latest Valentine has the necessary filters to keep those avoidance systems out of the speed detection business!! I have the original V1 and would not waste money on anything else… I am planning on getting the next generation unit early next year.
I have a Uniden R3 (which remains VortexRadar’s “Best detector under $400”) that I bought right here on Woot - and it does a GREAT job of filtering out the various crash avoidance signals from other cars on the road. Uniden has released a few firmware updates since I bought the detector and it gets better with each one - but it’s up to you to check for them. Vortex Radar is a great resource for that. I still get the occasional false alert from a Honda/Acura, but they are a lot more rare than they used to be. It’s really not a problem at all. I’m sure the R7 is as good as - or better - than the R3 in this respect.
The Uniden R7 is the best high-performance windshield mount radar detector on the market, giving you the best chance possible at detecting police officers using radar before they can detect you.
- Vortex Radar
I got this today! It looked mint, can’t tell it was refurb other than a vague sticker on bottom saying “factory serviced”.
FYI EVERYBODY WHO BOUGHT THIS: UPDATE THE FIRMWARE!
The firmware that it came with was 121.122.111 which is OLD.
Newest firmware is 129.129.113.
Download from here: http://www.uniden.info/download/index.cfm?s=R7 (top link)
- Extract the zip file.
- Install Uniden R Series SW Download Tool V1.28.msi
- Open that software (It should be on your desktop as “Uniden R Series SW Download Tool V1.28”)
- Plug in the R7, it should say connected and read the version number.
- Open r7_v129.129.113_db191002.bin, click start download. When this is done, go to step 6.
- Open DB_20200106.bin 2nd, click download
- Done - it’s updated.