Radenso XP Review

Whether you're a parent with a heavy foot trying to get their kids to school on time, or you work on Wallstreet, the Radenso XP will get you where you need to go without getting a ticket. Its unique filtering features and low range work perfectly in an urban setting, and the BSM filtering is insanely accurate. Read on to see how it held up to our rigorous testing.

Performance Comparison

Features

A simple radar detector can be nice, but the more features it offers, the more versatile it can be. The Radenso XP focuses its features mostly on filtering and has customizable alerts, ensuring a quiet drive through the city, which can be a higher false alert area.

The Auto-City mode is excellent for those who do not want to adjust their settings, but the Radenso XP is also highly adjustable. Manual GPS lockout and low-speed muting help to keep your device quiet in the presence of false threats like grocery store doors. Manual GPS lockouts mute known stationary false alerts like shopping malls once you mark them with your detector. Low-speed muting is manual but is overridden by certain high-priority bands like Ka and laser. During our testing, we had our LSM set to 25 miles per hour. When the detector senses a low-threat band, like a K-band, the device lights up but stays quiet. This way, you get all the necessary information without the annoying audible alert.

The XP also offers a Mute feature, activated by a button on the top of the device. This silences the audible alert for K-bands while allowing higher threat bands, like Ka, to alert the driver audibly. All these muting features may seem excessive, but driving through a busy city can be very distracting when your radar detector goes off every time you pass a shopping center.

Another cool feature that the XP offers is the Smart Dark Feature, which makes the screen go dark except for a small red power indicator light. It only alerts with flashes of information for lower-priority bands while still beeping for high-priority bands. This is similar to the Mute feature, however the contrast between the completely dark screen, especially at night, helps grab your attention even when there is no sound. Previous iterations of the Smart Dark Feature did not have the indicator light, leaving you wondering whether or not their detector is even on when it's particularly quiet.

The save user point feature helps remind you of places you often see speed traps, red light cameras, or other areas you may want to ensure you're paying special attention to your speed.

The XP is extremely customizable. It even allows you to turn the initial start-up sounds off so that you don't have to hear your detector say 'GPS connected' every time you start a new trip. This is separate from the ability to adjust the voice announcements, which can be disabled as well. If you want your detector to notify you of the type of band visually and audibly, you can enable voice announcements. If voice announcements are turned off, the device will still alert you audibly via beeping; it will simply refrain from reciting the band type and strength, which will instead appear on the screen.

The XP does not offer automatic GPS lockouts, like some of the pricier options in our test suite. It also doesn't have a light sensor that automatically adjusts the brightness of your screen. That being said, many detectors are fooled by cloudy weather and present a screen that is too dim for daytime. So manually adjusting the brightness is a small price to pay. While there are still features the XP could benefit from having, it has become obvious over the years that Radenso is listening to customer complaints and suggestions and making great improvements to their detectors.

Accuracy

Accuracy in an urban setting can be a tall order, and even on the highway, there is no perfect radar detector. Each manufacturer does what they can to ensure a quiet ride through automatic or customizable filtering, and the XP offers some of the best.

A high level of filtering is what sets the XP apart from other options in its price range. While other detectors in our test suite perform as well as the XP does regarding accuracy, the mute, low-speed muting, and Smart Dark features all make for a very quiet drive.

One place where the XP truly outperforms most other detectors is Blind Spot Monitor filtering or BSM. Police radar emits a continuous wave, while BSMs do not. Manufacturers don't typically explain how their BSM filtering works, but the XP is amazing. Collision avoidance systems like Blind Spot Monitoring help assist the driver by offering video while parking or alerts while driving when an obstacle is dangerously close to your car. These collision avoidance systems are found in most modern cars and tend to trigger many false alerts for radar detectors, which is why the XP is noted as such an accurate device.

One place where the XP could use some attention is in its manual lockout feature. It occasionally loses a previously locked-out location, which results in false alerts. There is a simple fix, you just have to lock out the location again, but you may find yourself experiencing a little deja vu re-locking the same location.

Range

While Radenso's claims that the XP has a high radar detection range, our experience with it does not align with their rhetoric. The range is not bad by any means, but if you are looking for a device to take with you on your next cross-country road trip where you'll be frequenting long, flat strips of highway across Kansas, you may want to look elsewhere.

The lower range of this device is perfect for the city or more urban areas. You won't need to be notified of a police radar miles in advance because the police won't be able to see you yet, nor will their radar be able to reach you through obstacles like buildings and winding city streets. In short, the XP range is nothing to write home about, but if you are using it for its intended purposes, i.e., around town, this shouldn't affect its overall performance.

Ease of Use

Nothing about the XP is glaringly better or worse than other devices in this metric. The muting feature is nice because you do not need to listen to a bunch of false alerts while driving past strip malls and grocery stores. Once you have taken the time to figure out which settings you like best, you can set it and forget it. The display is clear and offers visual and audible alerts with the necessary information: signal strength, signal type, and the direction of the threat.

You must press and hold the volume buttons to change the volume. If you press without holding, the XP will issue a location alert which cannot be removed until the next time you drive past that same spot. Since you'll typically want to adjust the volume more than lockout or mark locations, it would be nice if these two controls were switched.

The mount also leaves a little to be desired. It is a simple double suction cup mount, which is very incognito compared to some of the bigger, bulkier setups, but in the presence of moisture, it occasionally falls off the windshield.

Should You Buy the Radenso XP?

This is not the least expensive option on the market, but its value is out of this world if you're looking for a daily urban driver. If you are less concerned with range and more concerned that you might throw your device out the window after it false alerts at a grocery store for the tenth time, the XP is a great pick. It is easy to use, feature-rich, and known for being one of the quietest radar detectors on the market, all for a very fair price.

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