Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There are a lot of great reviews of the Passport Max right now, and they seem to be fairly divided, loving or hating it with all kinds of testing and research and other detailed information thrown in on either side of the fence. Having owned radar detectors for about 25 years now, and having had Escort products for a while, I think I've figured out why the Passport Max both is and isn't the greatest detector on the market today. The short answer: I am extremely happy with my Passport Max, having stepped up from a Passport 8500. People with newer hardware might not see as much of a difference, and where you live definitely *will* make a difference as to how well it performs, especially if you're adding the Escort Live service and/or database updates. If you live in an area with a lot of speed traps and cameras, and/or you do a lot of aggressive way-over-the-limit driving, you're going to want to at least sign up for the Defender Database and you might consider the Live service; otherwise, most people in smaller towns will do fine with just the unit. The Pros Hardware The Passport Max is bulkier than my 8500, but a bit lighter. While the suction cup mounts of the earlier models were okay, the single cup mount in the Max is still a decent idea: it's a large circle of gooey rubbery material that stays sticky no matter what, but it's also pretty big, like the mount of a GPS dashboard unit. It can be released with the flip of a plastic latch that breaks the suction with the windshield. The release button to detach the detector from the mount is under the bracket on top of the Max, and so slipping a finger or thumb in the gap to release is tricky and requires a little bit of dexterity. The display is bright and clear, and the fact that it is recessed in the faceplate reduces the chance that the sun is going to wash out the screen and make it hard to see. You can customize the colors of the display to choose a favorite color palette. Information is easy to read, and Advanced mode gives me the signal strength bars that I'm so fond of with my 8500. While the unit comes with a SmartCord, the more advanced form of the SmartCord (called "Smart Cord Live" and sold separately) lets you tether to your cellphone and/or the Live service (more on that in a moment). My one gripe with other radar detectors has been the piercing 'chirp' or buzz noise they have to make to get your attention, and I like that this unit's alerts are voice driven and fairly subdued; alerts also gently strobe the light-up text on top of the unit to add another subtle cue. As an added bonus, if your phone is running the app and is also tethered to your car stereo and you're playing music from your phone, the Passport will mute the volume on the stereo to make the alert come through clearer. Software Probably the best advantage here is the customization: using the smartphone app or the downloadable software on a computer (via USB), you can more closely customize your radar detector. For example, mine defaults to alerting me if I go 10 miles over, but if that got annoying, I could tell it to do it at different times, or not at all. There are a lot more options now that the unit can be driven by software. The Defender Database is a subscription-based software package (sold separately) that will let you push updated information to the Passport Max that is stored directly on the unit. You can subscribe for one or three years, and updating the unit is done with software you download to your computer: you have to connect the Passport Max to the computer with a USB cable (not included). The Escort Live Service is a software system that lets you connect the unit to your Droid or iPhone via an app you install on the phone. It uses Bluetooth to connect, and does the following: - uses your phone's GPS (and your mobile data service) to show your location on a map, displayed on your phone's screen - uses your phone's GPS to show speed limit data where available - uses your phone's mobile data to update the map on your phone that indicates the locations of any items you want to watch for--speed cameras, reports of speed traps, etc. - when you spot a speed camera or trap, the Report button on the cord will both store the location in the unit and push it to the Live system so others can see the alert. - if you also use your phone for hands-free Bluetooth and/or music streaming with your car audio, the Passport will lower the volume on Bluetooth music when it needs to tell you about an alert As you can tell, connecting your phone's Bluetooth to the Escort Passport Max still lets you connect your phone's Bluetooth to other things, such as your car stereo or other hands-free Bluetooth system, at the same time. In the Field I live in a large city now, and it has laser, radar, and traffic light cameras. I don't drive like a speed demon, but I do own a very high-profile car, so for me the Passport Max is more about keeping me honest and making me aware when I'm being watched. I have almost as many false alerts with the Max as I did with my 8500, but the difference now is that I can suppress them with a couple of taps, and the Max will remember forever to ignore the alert (it shows up quietly in black-and-white on the screen). It also seems to get smart about the suppression: for example, a nearby school zone uses radar to post a sign showing you how fast you're going and remind you to slow down. When these are on both sides of the road, you end up getting two set of alerts. I muted one and the Max was smart enough to mute the second one because they overlap...and it stays muted, silently showing me bars but not interrupting me for something I've told it I already know about. I've used the Defender database and it's really easy to update the unit. I'm also pleasantly surprised with the Live Service and how it tracks user reports: even in the small town I used to live in, I'd see on the phone app that someone reported a traffic check X number of minutes ago (and I can customize when I want those updates to go 'stale' and drop off the screen) and I had a country-road speed-trap light up for me with plenty of advance notice. On the Interstate, I've been surprised at how early some of my alerts come, but you should remember that if an officer uses "instant On" and you're the first one he targets, there's not a lot you can do about it...for me the extra range means that an Instant On used over a mile away will warn me way ahead of time. In the end, I'm getting some pretty good improvements but I can see why owners of newer units such as the Redline aren't finding much to write home about--the Defender database and Live updates have been available for units newer than my last one for some time now. The Cons While I haven't had the alert problems that some people have had, I think the area you live in plays a big part in how well the Passport Max will work. For me its detection is top-notch, and yet not any better than my 8500: it's the ability to store falses that makes the Max a step up for me. That said, there are problems with the speed limit tracking: - the default value on the screen is something you can set, called your 'OverSpeed Limit'. Think of this as your, 'no matter what, I really don't want to be caught going this fast' number. When the Passport doesn't know a value (because you're not running the app on your phone), the OverSpeed Limit is displayed. It defaults to '70', and I have to remind myself when I see '70', that I'm not seeing real data. 70 has been a useful number, though: most of the time I'm not on the highway, so I want to be aware when I go over 70, and when I am on the highway, I pay more attention to my speed and don't tend to go below 70, so I don't get a lot of repeat alerts. It can be a bit confusing...remember that it's important to use the world around you--your gauges and the signs--more than this feature! - speed limits are only as accurate as the data. In the real world, there are posted, statutory, and actual speed limits and when you do get a value on the screen, there can be legal reasons it doesn't match what you see on the sign (such as "the state changed the data but the county hasn't changed the signs") or technical reasons ("the speed limit sign was put 500 yards away from the actual change because a sign couldn't fit over there"). Add to that the fact that Passport's database might not be pulling from the latest release of information--there are a lot of factors related to 'Big Data' that make "realtime" not mean what you may think it means. And there are plenty of rural roads where I live that have no data stored at all. - you're still a moving target. The GPS portion is reading in real-time, but Escort tell me (see the comments below)that there may still be a slight delay between your phone and the Max. There's a spot in my old town that goes from 35 to 45 to 55 in less than a mile, and the Passport is off by about 5-10 seconds. You still have to pay attention to the signs and signals around you (and to be honest, you really should). There is one other thing I thought was a bit annoying: the cable. To register your radar detector or start using the software, you will need a "USB A / Mini B cable". This is a fairly common cable you often get with USB 2.0 portable hard drives, digital cameras, and older cellphones, but Escort does not include it; you need to get your own. Given how cheap these cables are to the average consumer, it's a bit annoying that you don't get one with the unit given the Passport Max's price tag. The Conclusion Escort Radar has to keep innovating to make technology attractive. They are always looking for ways to improve, but the result is a double-edged sword: loyal customers won't see huge gains from one model to another, and at the same time, leading-edge technology isn't always ready for prime-time. We have limits in the real world (such as GPS coordinates for a speed limit versus the actual place where someone put the sign) that reduce the benefits. We haven't had substantial changes in police radar since the introduction of pulse and laser, but we have a lot of other issues (speed cameras, red-light cameras, etc.) that Escort tries to address. The Passport Max is Escort's best foot forward, and it is a superior attempt at making a good system. If you're new to radar detectors and have the money, it makes a great investment but you should remember the real-world limits and think about whether you want to buy the extra Defender and/or Live software subscriptions. If you have a great system already, don't expect a huge improvement with the Max unless you factor in the Live service. Questions and comments welcome below. :)