I am a long time radar detector user (25+ years), but haven't bought a new one in maybe 5 years. I therefore felt a bit out of the loop on current radar detector technology and thus decided I had some homework to do. I bought this Beltronics V995 unit after carefully reviewing all the radar detector review sites (which I very much recommend you do as well) and then honed my decision after picking a few top candidates and reading the reviews here on Amazon. I took about two weeks to make my decision. This is my first Beltronics unit, I have normally bought Escort/Passport in the past. Now that they are essentially the same company, and the same technology and construction has been brought to the Beltronic's lineup, I thought I would give them a try, especially since this unit is top-rated and less expensive than the other high end detectors in this field, like the cough*Passport 9500i*cough.

First, note this unit is not GPS-enabled with preset photo radar cameras in its memory. As another reviewer noted, for the additional price, go buy a Garmin GPS and plug them in yourself. You'll save a ton of money and have a better GPS unit to boot. If $ is no object, and you simply must have the latest toy, by all means go buy yourself a GPS-enabled unit. The reviews stated they did work pretty well, but you will pay dearly for that technology.

But if you just want stellar radar detection at an affordable price, by all means consider the Bel V995. In "most" tests I reviewed, while it may not have offered the very earliest detection warning, it was close enough to easily get the job done. Sure you could spend twice the price (or more) and get .3 of a second earlier warning, but, do you need to? I didn't think so and in real world driving, the difference has proven negligible. Still, if you are someone who has to have the "best," and will pay whatever that costs, by all means go look at those $500 to $600 units out there and get them. I used to be one of "those" guys, but that was before the reality of things like a family, mortgage, college savings, etc. came into play. This unit now costs under $200, which is really a steal considering what it does.

I have had the unit for several months now and consider the unit battle tested, having driven up New York State's infamous Route 17, from beginning to end, half a dozen times. As anyone who is familiar with that highway knows, it is a literal rat's nest of radar traps, the New York State troopers utilizing both KA band and laser, and of course, instant-on. It does help that I am very familiar with most of their preferred "hiding" spots, but that just made it easier to test the unit's ability to sniff them out in advance. And let me just say, the unit works as advertised and reviewed. Not a single ticket and I just smile every time it finds the cop...But of course you can never predict where they will be cruising on the highway itself, with instant on, you really have to pay attention and take every alert seriously or you will, eventually, get a ticket. And if there is no one around you at all - slow down!

I drive with the unit's "autoscan" feature, which as many have described, is the no-brainer way of letting the unit pick whether to be in highway or city mode, and it does a very effective job of ignoring false alarms like automatic door openers operating on X band, and yet picking up a real trap from a great distance.

The other great feature, again as others have noted, is the auto-mute feature. The unit loudly announces the presence of police radar for 2-3 seconds, gets your attention, allowing you to slow down, then reduces the volume automatically so it is not blasting your ears. You can manually adjust this feature if you do not want it to auto mute. Nice.

The smart cord feature is also nice and does in fact now come with the unit. It's nice because you can auto mute from the cord if you want, and you can also run in "dark" mode, if you don't want others to see the warning lights from your unit mounted on the windshield, the display on the cord will light up instead. They call this running in "stealth" mode. At night I would and do consider doing this.

Oh, and for those newbie radar detector users who just don't "get it," and give this unit, as well as others, one star for failing to protect you from instant on radar - this unit will NOT protect you from instant on radar. NO radar detector will do that and if you don't understand that, perhaps a radar detector is not for you. Enough said.

Bottom line, this unit works extremely well for what it was designed to do. It is well built, easy to use right out of the box, and does what it is supposed to do. For now less than $200, I don't see how you can beat it from a price/performance ratio. I would buy it again in a second. Do your own research and see if you don't agree with me after you do. Good luck.