Escort Max Ci 360 & Max Ci Review/Preview: Custom Installed Radar Detectors

The Escort Passport 9500ci grows up and in a big way

Published: 01-03-2017 by Veil Guy

Escort Max Ci 360 Custom Installed Radar Detector Review/Preview

Say hello to Escort’s new top dogs.

After literally years of asking by the radar detector enthusiast community, Escort is finally updating the Escort Passport 9500ci remote installed radar detector platform with what will be their new halo products called the Escort Max Ci 360 and Escort Max Ci. You know the old adage, a rolling stone gathers no moss and that expression is most apt for Escort Radar and its parent company Cedar Electronics.

As the name suggests, the Escort Max Ci 360 and Escort Max Ci are promising to be two killer radar detector and laser jamming systems and they’re going to have a price point to match. Retail pricing for the Escort Ci 360 is $3499.95 and as such these remote-mounted radar detectors are being positioned to offer better more-capable value than other remote detectors from K40 and Stinger.

Truth be told, the even higher priced Stinger VIP & Laser HD combo hasn’t lived up to its hype in the forums, and continues to have performance issues, most notably on the laser jamming front. The Escort Ci 360 and Escort Ci should not be plagued by such issues as they have quietly been developing a world-class laser jamming system.

The name Max Ci 360 tells a lot about what drivers–who are fortunate to be able to afford it–should expect to get with this puppy.

The Escort Max Ci 360 and Escort Max Ci are chock-full of really good stuff.

Like the Passport 9500ci, the  Max Ci 360 will remain undetectable by radar detector detectors, like the Spectre IV, however the hardware platform is not technically M3-based like the 9500ci or the Escort Redline radar detectors. Expect the platform to be called, M7. Like the M3 antenna, the radar detection module is expected to have two forward facing antennas, one tuned to X-band (good for those who drive in New Jersey or Ohio), and the other tweaked for both K and Ka-bands. Like the M5/M6 platform of the Escort Max 360, band segmentation won’t be needed to extract super quick detections to briefly appearing weak radar.

This takes us to our next product highlight–an all digital back-end. Enthusiasts will no longer have to wonder what it would be like combining the extreme sensitivity and stealth nature of the M3s to an all digital processing back-end of an M5/M6. That’s what the M7 is going to be all about, giving us the best of both worlds. Finally!

What has been sorely lacking with the Escort Passport 9500ci has been the advanced signal processing (ie; filtering and signal rejection) of the more recent Max series of radar detectors. This has been rectified with the new Cis, as the Max Ci 360 and Max Ci are the beneficiaries of Escort’s effective IVT (in-vehicle technology) filter. This has been the achilles heel of the 9500ci–its limited ability to effectively filter out or reject transmissions from automotive K-band collision avoidance systems that are oh so very common today.

But wait there’s more! Escort doesn’t stop there and as the name suggests with the Max Ci 360, it’s going to have both front and rear mountable antennas and an OLED display that, like the Escort Max 360 windshield-mount, has the ability to show directional arrows and signal strength levels from both the front and rear at the same time The “360” also refers to its laser shifting (laser jamming) capabilities, with both front rear mounted laser jamming heads.

Look out ALP, I think it’s safe for me to say now, that Escort has “cracked” the VPR (variable-pulse rate) police lasers out there and I fully expect to see a stand-alone laser shifting system to follow at a very reasonable price as has been the case historically. Escort laser shifters of the past haven’t always been the class leaders on the jamming front, but Escort is no longer going to be satisfied with this, so expect significantly improved laser jamming capabilities over the their laser shifter pro models.

The laser jamming heads are also going to be their smallest yet allowing for both horizontal and vertical mounting, making it much easier on installers.  Another important thing about Escort’s laser shifting sub-system, owners need not worry about the potential patent-infringement issues with Blinder, like those with other jammer manufacturers, meaning your investment will be protected and supported long-term without risk.

The Max Ci 360 comes with Bluetooth support for both iPhone and Android apps for easy integration into their Escort Live! application, but Bluetooth support also enables an incredibly powerful new capability–the ability to upload wirelessly, real-time updates to their Defender database. If Escort enables firmware updates in the same fashion, that’s going to really be something.

For those looking to get into the Ci 360 in an incremental fashion, Escort will be releasing a lower-priced Ci model–a front-facing only radar and laser shifting model–which can be later made into a full Ci 360 by adding the rear section, as an option, that is included as standard in the Ci 360. The front-only Ci facing model is slated to retail at $2999.95.

Bottom line, the new Ci 360 and Ci are going to be two killer systems and are being positioned to be the most effective all-in-one countermeasures for many years to come.

Stay tuned for a full in-depth review in the near future.

In the meantime, RadarBusters will be accepting “pre-orders” for those interested in being the first adopters of these awe-inspiring new products.

Veil Guy