Home > Consumer Reviews > Cobra ESD 9870 Radar Detector

The Cobra 9870 radar detector claims to be undetectable to the Spectre 'radar detector detector' - this is simply NOT true. I got my unit confiscated today by the police in Ontario as a result of this claim. The manufacturer also claims that the unit can detect the Spectre. This is also FALSE. I held the 9870 right in front of the police officers Spectre and the 9870 detected NOTHING!
I find these false claims appauling and I want my money back not only for the unit (purchased at Amazon) but also for the fine.
I will pursue this with Cobra and Amazon.

This is a great unit for the price, it detects 11 bands of radar and it gives plenty of warning time for you to take action. Pay no attention to the above review.. This unit is VG-2 Undetectable, it never claims to be undetectable to Spectre. I have tested my 9870 on a spectre and vg-2, I get alerts on both tests and vg-2 can't see my radar.

But since I live in the United States, it is not against the law for me to own a radar detector, hence I have no need for these special features.

Great unit for a great price!!

So many false alerts you won't know if any of them are real. That is if it detects the real ones. My town uses radar trailers that use the same Ka band as the cars but my 9870 would not detect it sometimes. Then for some reason it would just start going off when I was in the middle of no where. It would seem to cycle through everything "Ka.....K.....X....Train approaching". For some reason there were a lot of trains crossing my paths in places like parking lots. Now I know that radar detectors have false alerts but this thing is horrible!!! Don't waste your money! Invest in another company, Cobra makes horrible radar detectors, this is my second and last one. Don't bother getting help with your detector from Cobra either they just don't care. Check out the Escort Passport 8500 X50 instead.

Please do not be fooled by the high dollar look of this unit! All Cobra detectors are full of software glitches. I started with the older 9550 model and it had so many glitches in it that Cobra kindly upgraded me to the 9870. But guess what. This "new and improved" unit is based off of the same old junk. It uses much of the same software and has many of the same problems. Some problems include loss of "stay set memory", changes in brightness level without command, inoperative "smart power". As far as detection goes, this unit is very lacking. Many times I can see the cop, using constant radar, before this unit does. It constantly falses Ka and VG-2/Spectere/POP (if selected on). The only good thing about this unit is that it is plenty loud. If you dare purchase a cobra, I am sure you will be very dissastisfied and will want to return it. Cobra customer service will be glad to swap you out with a new one with the same poblems. Buyer beware!!

Got 3 tickets and each time the detector did not make a peep. But it goes off in every parking lot and many stop lights. Cobra support said the the first detector was defective and sent me a newer improved 9870 model and it does not work.