Right out of the box you can feel the build quality isn’t on par with some other radar detector offerings. I compared the 360 Max to my STI Driver and, admittedly, it made me a little sad. The Max is also on the large and heavy side. However the 360 purports to be one of the most comprehensive radar detectors on the market so maybe it takes a lot of room to fit all those features in there. With it’s LCD screen and indicator arrows it certainly looks like it’s built for business.
I immediately liked the included accessories. The power cord is a smart design; I can plug in the curled portion inside my glove box and then run the straight portion of the cable up to the windshield-mounted 360. The windshield mount is a sticky cup design (like my old mount which has been excellent). The new mount has a magnetic latch that makes the 360 super easy to mount and remove. At first it seemed like the detector wasn’t being held securely but pushing it back against the mount with a bit of force remedies the problem.
The Max has plenty of preference settings making customization easy (display colors, sound options, band lockouts, etc). The LCD screen shows quite a bit of information making it easy to know what’s going on.
My first time out The Max 360 blinked and hollered at everything. But turning off the X-band and a few more trips made a world of difference (after detecting fixed signals a few times the 360 will store “false” alerts and stop pestering you with them). Detection seems to be alright although there were a couple of instances where I saw a police car but the Max didn’t register any radar activity. In my experience with my STI Driver when there is a police car there is radar. I may need to do some side by side testing.
The directional indicator is a very nice feature but in my limited testing it seemed to have trouble figuring out where to point the arrow. I will reserve final judgement for a month or so and see how the Max 360 performs over time. Possible detecting glitches aside, the Max 360 seems to be a comprehensive standalone solution and it’s been enjoyable to use thus far.
Overall Rating: 7/10
If you want more information on the Escort Max 360 I’d check Vortex Radar’s incredibly comprehensive Max 360 review.
Escort M1 Dashcam
7/13/2019: I picked up the Escort M1 Dashcam. It’s a nifty little device that shares the same mounting bracket and power as most Escort radar detectors. Adding this dashcam is ridiculously easy and it’s an inexpensive way to always have a record of what’s going on in front of you (no rear model yet). To me, adding this on was a no-brainer.
Here is some video footage of the camera. It’s 30FPS 1080p video (higher quality would have been better, but it’s not bad). There’s a lot of windshield reflection, but maybe that’s the positioning. While it handed low light okay, the level of graininess introduced is on the high side. I like that it records audio- that could be useful for solving in car memory related arguments. Given what the unit is, I have quite happy with it so far.