Summary: I have bought this ESD7000 detector 3 days ago for $30 as a gift to my wife who is much careful driver than I. My neighbor recommended this to me as he's been using this model for 8 years without major complaints. I have extensively tested this against my Cobra XRS-9330 which I also bought recently.

Both ESD7000 and XRS-9330 detected VG-2 signals shot from a town cop very early & accurately from about 100ft. Both offer bright and clear enough displays although ESD7000 only has icons to indicate signals. However, ESD7000 only covers 6 bands (K, Ka, Superwide K, X, Laser, and VG-2) as compared to XRS9330 which covers 12 bands (plus Ku band for Europe, more laser/VG-2 bands). On the highway, ESD7000 also had much shorter range (~0.8 mile) compared to XRS9330 (~1.5 miles) on K/Ka bands. Both have good loud and infinitely adjustable volume dials.

City mode on both are similar and relatively reliable. I drove past the known cop ambush areas to verify its Laser and VG-2 effectiveness. Both triggered alerts at the distance when I could barely visually spot the cop, just enough to react.

Some downsides of ESD7000 is that it does not have signal strength indicator as in XRS9330 and it resets itself when power/car is restarted. False alarm is frequent even in City Mode whenever I enter a shopping center or building complex that have automatic doors. Also, Auto mute feature on it takes a bit too long (~4 seconds) to kick in even when I'm completely stationary. It gets annoying to sit in a parking lot in front of a grocery store to have to keep listening to the false alerts. The Intellimute feature on XRS9330 does not let this happen as it mutes the signal based on vehicle's speed - i.e. does not alert at very slow/stationary state.

Overall, this is not a bad buy for the money if you're not a serious speeder (like my wife) anyway, don't travel to Europe (Ku band), don't mind false alarms in parking lots, and detection range is not so much an issue as long as you have enough time to react and slow down. Why pay $100-200 for a detector if you don't really need the performance, bells & whistles, right?

Summary: Not very sensitive to X band signals from the shops as the other reviews lead me to believe, the \"City Mode\" is quite robust and does not go off for all the signals from the stores. The Auto Mute Mode is cool, it automatically reduces the volume of all alerts after 4 seconds for as long as the signal is detected. This detector is worth the money spend on it. But it should be noted that it is a very simple detector for people who might go over the speed limit once in while with/without their knowledge and does not offer the state-of-art features provided by the more expensive detectors.

Summary: For the $30 I paid for mine, it can't be beat.... I trust my wife with it...Don't zoom around town and expect it to alert you to laser at 100ft because you'll already be screwed! I own a Passport and this performs great on Highway, and does alert in the city but like I said it is a good buy, like everything else, it is relative....