Cobra SPX 7800BT Radar Detector Review

“Garbage in, Garbage out, Garbage Throughout”

If you look at Cobra Electronics marketing material on their new Cobra SPX 7800BT radar detector its evident that they are touting it as their answer to the Escort Max2.

So I decided to purchase one a couple weeks ago to see on how it would measure up to their claims first during a 800 mile round trip to LA from my home in Arizona and then a few days of commuting from my home to the Phoenix area.

During this review I drove with the detector for a total of 5-days, logging over 1200 miles with the detector on highway mode, X-band off.

Range and Sensitivity

Of course the most important thing you should expect from any radar detector is its ability to accurately detect police radar so you will have ample time to slow down without smashing on the brakes.

The formula I often use to calculate this “ample distance” is 5 times the capture rate of the police radar gun.

During my road trip from LA and back the Cobra did meet the goal on K band, but failed miserably on Ka.

K-Band Alerts: The local Sheriff’s Office and several police departments in my area use K band. During my review the Cobra properly alerted me to 13 K-band threats with each meeting my criteria of being over the 5X capture distance.

Ka-Band Alerts: Because of the wider spectrum of Ka-Band, most detectors have a difficult time sweeping this band and this was very evident with the Cobra.

Out of the 100 plus alerts I received on Ka, I would only credit 20% of them being real threats and those that were real the cruiser was within visual range.

Filtering

If you ever owned a radar detector you know how annoying false alerts are and once you’re fed up with them you either turn the detector off or start ignoring the alerts entirely.

So to be honest with you it was very tempting to switch out the Cobra with my trustworthy Max during my road trip to LA.

As an example during the 190 miles between Phoenix and Yuma on I-10 the detector falsely alerted on K-band over 50 times and Ka-band 30 times.

And then to make matters worse, the Cobra then uploaded my false alerts along with other iRadar users false alerts and every few miles I would get a notice that I was driving in a threat area on my iPhone.

iRadar

iRadar is Cobra’s version of Escort Live.

First off there is two features that I do like in iRadar that Live does not offer, one the ability to use GPS navigation while in the app and the other the iRadar subscription is free.

However remember the old saying, “you get what you pay for”.

When you receive an alert through iRadar you only have two choices, live police and not sure.

My first though seeing the “not sure” option is that Cobra must think that their users are dumb, unable to make the decision to lock out the threat as being a false alert location.

Then another problem surfaced with their reporting.

I’m very familiar with the area around my neighborhood regarding enforcement, as one I’m a retired cop who patrolled this area, two I personally know the officers who patrol the area and three, I have lived in the area for over 32 years.

So I was very shocked to see one area right around the corner from my home marked as a speed trap, as I had not seen any cop there at that location in over 5 years!

So because of this garbage in garbage out mentality from Cobra the real time threat matrix is littered with false and unreliable information.

Spectre and VG2 Alerts

In the iRadar interface there is an option to enable Spectre and VG2 alerts and their manual states that by enabling this feature the detector will alert you if a Spectre radar detector detector is within range.

This feature is worthless to 90% of detector users, however very important to commercial drivers and/or drivers who would operate a radar detector where they are illegal.

Well in this photograph you can see that my Spectre was placed directly under the Cobra and it never made a peep.

And what’s worse my Spectre was able to detect the Cobra SPX 7800BT at over 235 feet away, so it does leak a lot of RF (radio frequency).

Color OLED Display

The Cobra SPX 7800BT has a 1.25 OLED display, which you’re able like the Escort Max, to change colors.

However what I found very annoying with the Cobra is that it seems that every small bump or vibration caused the display to flicker on and off.

No Internal GPS

Unlike the Escort Max, the Cobra SPX 7800BT does not have an internal GPS.

Therefore to utilize Cobra’s Aura safety camera database you need to have it interfaced with the iRadar interface.

This means that you will not get notice of these cameras if you’re in a fringe cell phone area and that you will racking up time on your usage plan when you are.

Inability to Lock Out Known False Alert Locations

As noted one of the most frustrating things for me during my 5-day test drive with the Cobra were the relentless false alerts that not only my detector was receiving, but also broadcast and shared through the entire iRadar network.

If I could make one suggestion to Cobra that would be having the option to mark these as false so they would not be broadcast as real and then store them into their iRadar database.

Here is one snapshot of just one of the many other alerts I experienced over the 5-day test drive.

At this intersection there are several stores including a Staples and a Walmart that have door openers on K-Band.

When I drove past this location I received 5 K-band alerts which were the door openers which if I had the ability to lockout, I would had.

However this location was immediately reported by iRadar as being a threat zone and when I drove by 13 minutes later iRadar inaccurately reported the location as being a threat, marking the spots on the highway of where the alerts were.

Garbage in, garbage out..

Other Reviews on the Cobra SPX 7800BT

Here are just a few other reviews other users have posted online about the Cobra SPX 7800BT.

“This radar detector does not work good at all and I am very disappointed with it and wish I could get my money back” – Francisco Franco

“Its performance is poor. Incessant false alarms make this unit so annoying that I actually unplugged it” – S.E.Z.

“The screen started to blink and then the Bluetooth quit, which is the main reason I returned it” – RJH

My Bottom Line Recommendation on the Cobra SPX 7800BT

Cobra’s marketing by their claim of using “military grade components”, having “super-fast sweep circuitry”, using a “OLED display” and their iRadar “community based app” may make you believe that you would be getting a detector of the same caliber as the Escort Max, however you’re NOT.

Because of this my recommendation is to save your money and consider an alternative.

If your budget is an issue consider the new Passport radar detector from Escort.

But if you really want to make the best investment to protect you from tickets, check out my video review of the Max2.

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