Our review includes everything from budget-friendly and simplistic to advanced, feature-rich models. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for when it comes to radar detectors, but the Uniden DFR7 is an affordable device that works remarkably well. It provides consistently accurate long-distance detection of K, X, and Ka bands (the three used by law enforcement), with particularly impressive performance regarding Ka band, which is traditionally the trickiest of all three to pick up. When the buttons were on the side, you had to reach further and blindly feel around for them, which can be very distracting while driving.

While there are plenty of even cheaper radar detectors out there, the cheapest device we'd recommend is the Uniden DFR7, the predecessor to the DFR9. You can also mute weak K-band signals, which will further cut down on false alerts from BSM systems in neighboring vehicles. This means that your device will detect a signal and alert you before recognizing that the threat is a lockout location. In one encounter the Uniden R8 out alerted the Redline 360c by 50 seconds at a steady 85 mph, that’s more than a mile advantage. The auto mode, however, is new and helps keep your detector quiet by varying the sensitivity based on a speed you can set manually.I don’t know if Uniden plans on adding Auto mode to the R7 or if that’ll stay exclusive to the R8 (and R4). Another costly but class-leading radar detector, the Uniden R8 is essentially an updated version of the R7.

that will be shipped on retail R8’s and should offer the same performance and overall experience as what we’ve been testing, according to what I’ve been told. I’ve been running it to only filter out weak signals so I still get alerted to stronger signals and I can count on one hand the number of times in the last 4 months that a signal has punched through the weak filter. The R8 has bluetooth built in, just like the R4, but there were no apps available for me to beta test prior to launch.Interestingly, the degree of improvement of the R8 versus the 360c was the equivalent to what we have observed with the Redline 360c over the performance of the R7, but now the performance has tipped back to Uniden’s advantage.