Escort Passport 8500 X50

The Escort Passport 8500 X50 replaced the Escort Passport 8500 model I christened "World's Best Radar Detector" when I first tested it some years back. Among Escort's non-GPS models, the Escort Passport 8500 X50 is one notch below the Escort RedLine ($499).

The Passport 8500 X50 is available two versions, your a choice of a platinum or black housing, and both can be had with either a red or blue LED display. Despite some advertising hype to the contrary, the newer Escort Passport 8500 X50 Black differs only in color. Otherwise, the two are identical and, as our recent test showed, they also perform identically.

If you'd like the same radar detector at a steep discount, try the BEL (Beltronics) Vector 995. It uses a different case but shares its M4 platform with the 8500 X50 and has the same performance. But it has some useful extra features, voice alerts chief among them. Now instead of having to scan the display or depend entirely on audio tones to identify threats, a pleasant voice announces the particulars instead. (Audio tones are an alternate menu option.) Unlike the Escort, the BEL Vector 995's audio can be adjusted remotely, using the SmartCord mute button, a feature particularly useful when the BEL is used on a motorcycle.

A Ph.D in electronics isn't required to operate the 8500 X50. A thumbwheel switch handles the power on/off function and regulates the volume of its audible alerts. A pair of multi-function buttons atop the case handles everything else except for manually-muting the audio. (Auto-muting is standard; after a short full-volume alert the Escort 8500 X50 automatically silences the audible alert to limit the annoyance factor.)

Signal strength (your proximity to the radar) is indicated audibly by beep frequency, visually by a bar graph that rises progressively as signal strength increases. The radar band—X, K or Ka—is spelled out in the text display, making it simple to comprehend what type of radar you're encountering. (In town, an X-band alert will almost certainly be a commercial automatic door opener, all of which operate on police-radar frequencies and account for half of all urban false alarms.)

The Escort Passport 8500 X50 is truly plug 'n play, but it has an array of user-selectable menu options that allow it to be fine-tuned to the driver's taste. For example, you may prefer not to advertise the detector's presence at night. No worries; the display can be reduced to a single discrete letter to denote its operating mode. Or if you'd like to check the helath of the vehicle's electrical system, the Escort 8500 X50 will digitally display voltage levels, warning of a problem before you're left stranded some night. There's also a pair of audio tones: standard and loud. We tried both and found them indistinguishable from one another, but it's possible that someone with more acute hearing could detect a difference.

The two Escort 8500 X50s and the BEL Vector 995 exhibited nearly identical performance; the expected difference is attributable to component tolerance stackup in production. Of more note was their performance on the critical Ka band. The reason for this close grouping was a pair of slight rises in the road at about 20,250 and 27,500 feet, beyond which the detectors dropped out of line-of-sight for another 1.2 miles. At our unlimited-range test site there likely would have been a greater gap in performance.

Among the more useful menu items is a trio of city modes. City reduces sensitivity to combat urban false alarms. If that proves insufficient, City LoX further cuts sensitivity. And for microwave-saturated regions that prove resistant to those measures, City NoX cuts X-band entirely. To the mortals who must drive in Ohio or New Jersey, the two holdout states whose state cops continue to use hoary old X-band radar, City NoX is the best compromise. It allows them to travel city and county roads devoid of X-band police radar while sharply limiting false alarms. But when they head down an entrance ramp onto a state police-enforced major highway, selecting highway mode restores both X band and full sensitivity.

Standard is a coiled SmartCord whose power plug houses two LEDs and a push-button switch. A blue LED glows to verify that the unit is powered-up and ready; a red LED flashes during alerts. The switch controls the manual mute function, allowing the driver to mute alerts without having to fumble with the detector. Those uninterested in that task can wait a few seconds, letting the 8500 X50's auto mute handle the job automatically.

Composite Ratings Maximum Rating Features Ease of Use Radar-warning range False-alarm resistance Overall Value

The Escort Passport 8500 X50 will interface with Escort's ZR4 laser jamming system by plugging-in a single wire to an interface box. (The two front and single rear laser-jamming "shifters" are mounted in the grille area and near the rear license plate.) Once connected, the detector displays laser alerts and tells you when it's jamming them. The same system fits high-end BEL models like the RX65.

With the addition of the Escort 8500 X50 Black to the lineup, there's some confusion about which version performs better. To find out, we ran the two head-to-head but with a kicker: for comparison we also included a BEL (Beltronics) Vector 995 (under $299), plus the much pricier BEL STi Driver ($469) and Escort Redline ($499). The latter is our all-time long-range champ, having spotted all of our radars from 14.27 miles away in our maximum-range shootout against the Valentine One (V1).

That was at a different test site and we expected rather less range on this occasion, but we were curious to see if a $299 model could get within a country mile of one of the alpha males dominating the windshield-mount detector category.

What we found was eye-opening. Aside from confirming that the performance of the 8500 X50 Black was a mirror image of the 8500 X50 platinum-case model's, we found that both indeed could run with the big dogs on Ka band. On K band the 8500 X50s even slightly eclipsed the BEL STi Driver which, charitably, may not have been in the blush of good health. Only on X band did we note a significant gap between the 8500 X50s and both the BEL STi Driver and Escort Redline. The latter in turn was significantly hotter than the others on K band, offering over twice the range of the low-priced entrants.

One other major surprise was the BEL Vector 995, which slightly outpaced the mightly BEL STi Driver on K band while almost exactly matching it on Ka band. This is outstanding performance for a bargain-bin ($249 on sale) radar detector.

The Escort 8500 X50 is a refined, sophisticated detector with commendably well-balanced performance. While it can't match its upmarket siblings in maximum range, for moderate-risk drivers and those on a budget, it remains one of our favorites and continues to dominate the $300 price point.