5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
I'm very happy with my purchase
Date of Review: Aug 24, 2002
The Bottom Line: Voice alert, memory settings retention even when the power is disconnected, and a great display make this the radar detector to buy.
I did a lot of research on radar detectors before purchasing mine. I came to the conclusion that the Valentine 1 is the best, but at around $500 it was way out of my price range, and I think its ugly. I also found out that the Bel brand of radar detectors have almost always performed well.
The Bel 940 is the bottom model of their top of the line series of detectors. The other 9xx series detectors add more features, but I think the innards are basically the same. All the 9xx series detectors have voice alert. This is great because you don't have to look up at the display to see what band it is picking up, it will tell you in a synthesized voice. The voice is easy to hear and doesn't sound cheesey at all, but I would have liked it if they would have used the voice from 'Kit' from the old Night Rider tv show.
One of the things that cheaper radar detectors lack is Ka band sensitivity. Ka is the newest band, and uses the lowest power output of any of the radar bands. It is hard to pick up. Cheaper detectors may not pick up Ka band until its too late. The Bel 9xx series detectors have excellent Ka sensitivity.
The display on this unit works great. It has three levels of brightness, Bright, Dim and Dark. When on Bright I can see the display easily even in the brightest sunlight. Dim works great for evening, and I use Dark when driving at night. The car behind me can't even see the unit at all when on Dark mode. They could have called it 'Stealth' mode.
Instead of just having City/Highway modes like most detectors, this unit has Highway, City All and City X. City all makes the unit less sensitive on all bands, and City X only reduces sensitivity on the X band.
Some detectors reset to their original default settings when you disconnect the power, or even worse, when you turn the unit off. The Bel 9xx series detectors will remember all your settings even when the power disconnected. I would not have bought a detector with out this feature, since I have mine wired into the ignition switch.
Buy Radar Detectors
