Home > Consumer Reviews > Cobra XRS-9700 11-Band Radar/Laser Detector with Intellishield and Voice Alert

I bought my unit in Feb. 04 and it has performed perfectly since. It recognizes all bands (including Spectre 1) and has saved me mucho dinero. My car is parked outside in the blazing Florida sun and the unit has no apparent ill-effects from the heat. If a police vehicle has its detection equipment activated the Cobra 9700 WILL detect it, at least mine always does. I highly recommend this unit.

I bought this radar detector about 2 weeks ago, and I haven't gotten any help from it other than the fact it'll tell me what direction I'm driving. I bought the Cobra b/c my friend has one and he said that it has really helped him, but I don't have the same experience with the 9700. Last night I drove past FOUR cops and it never once made a sound around them, but after I drove off and was in the middle of nowhere, it decided to start alerting me about nothing. I've found that the detector hasn't gone off once when I've driven by a cop doing radar, but it'll just go off when there is nothing there. It does consistently alert me about the stationary radar devices on the side of the interstate, but it doesn't decide to go off until it is already in my visible line of sight, and sometimes even after that. The device is terrible when it comes to producing false alarms, and weak when it comes to detecting actual radar.

In its defense, it has saved me once, which makes it worth the investment, but I would recommend getting something better.

The more you spend on a radar detector the longer the range. To me that is common knowledge. If you want a radar detector to pick up sooner you need to spend more money on one. When I bought this one I knew the range would be shorter than a detector I spent $500 for, but I am only a woman. So guys should definitely know what they are buying. This radar detector does what it is supposed to do. It is not a $300 radar detector. If you want it to pick up a radar 2 miles down the road spend twice the money on a radar detector. Overall it: it does what you money pays for it to do.

I think I got what I paid for. It managed to detect the speed-guns and warn me to give couple of seconds to slow down (in Sri Lankan roads). However, this unit developed a serious problem. The dot matrix display panel suddenly went dark. It turned out to be a problem with a connection point of the power supply. When I twist and wriggle the connecter a bit (at the point where the external cord connects with the unit) the display panel comes back momentarily. Now I cannot see the display at day time since it is so faint. I am living with that problem. Not sure if anyone else has got the same problem.

Apart from the problem with the display, all other functions are quite OK.

I got this at walmart (called the Cobra 777) and returned after 2 weeks. I drove by numerous cops, and theres now way not one of them had there radar on, i saw a few watching people go by and still nothing would happen. i had 1 pop hit but i was directly behind the cop on the road. the only times i ever get hits is driving on busy two lane shopping area, or in the middle of nowhere where this nothing around.. i brought it back and found a Passport X50 for $200 new on this site and got it(there were 2 left at this price idk if you will find one..)