Inforad V4e V4e Battery

I purchased this product as I got a speeding ticket driving a little over the speed limit, fortunately for me instead of the points I was offered a speed awareness course which has helped educate me further. You apparently only get this option if your speed was not excessive as in my case. As you are only offered the speed awareness course once every three years or so I was concerned that it could re-occur if I happened to go over the limit a little in a new area I was not familiar with so wanted a product which would warn me and was not too expensive. I looked at other products like the TomTom, RoadAngel and the Snooper, these were far more expensive but the biggest put off on these products was the fact that you couldn't leave them connected in the car as if you did you would most likely get broken in and the expensive products stolen with the end result a waste of money. The other reason for not choosing those products is because if you have to pack them away and unpack them each time you want to use them in your car, you are most likely not going to connect them up each time you get in and as a result there is a chance you could get caught and then it would again be a waste of money. The product also does not need a subscription like the others to update the camera database which is also fantastic, you couldn't ask for anything better. This product arrived very quickly and was well packaged. The little black thing at the bottom of the unit is a battery pack so it can be used without the car adapter if required. I have left this connected to the unit and connected it directly to a dual cigarette lighter so it powers up every time the car powers up. I also purchased a In Car Holder Sticky Pad Gadget Mat For Mobile Phone iPhone Blackberry Samsung and placed the product onto that, I didn't use the sticky pad that came with the product as I didn't want to leave any possible residue from the pad on my car dashboard if the product needed to be removed for any reason, the In Car Holder Sticky Pad Gadget Mat For Mobile Phone iPhone Blackberry Samsung works amazingly and allows the Inforad to look so discreet, its quite tiny anyway but as its set-up it looks as though its part of the vehicle. The connector on the side of the unit does need to be pushed in quite hard into the socket otherwise the unit fails to power up, this took me a while to figure out as I didn't want to break it and was confirmed after speaking to the product tech support. If you use Windows 7 or above you will also need to contact them to obtain the software patch to allow you to tweak the Inforad detector settings, warning times and other warning notices and perform all the updates through Windows so you have the latest camera database. Occasionally it does take a little while to pick up the GPS signal, sometimes it can take almost 3-4 minutes but if this happens I usually unplug the unit from the cigarette lighter and plug it back in then it detects the signal within a minute or so. For the price, quality and the fact that there is no on-going subscription there is really no reason to not have this in your car and can easily pay back in the amount it can potentially save in points on your licence and the associated fees that go with having points on your licence. I think this has to be one of the best purchases of the year.

I rather sceptically ordered the Inforad v4e knowing that other buyers had had problems but reviews are mostly written by dissatisfied people anyway so I thought I'd give it a go. The unit is nice and small but you do need to plug the battery pack in to use it or you can choose to hard-wire it in, in which case you will need to buy another cable to plug it into your PC for updates. The information booklet should be ignored regarding downloading the IFM software. It just takes you round in circles. I used my internet browser to search for 'Inforad Manager 3.6' and followed the link from there. Everything went well. I plugged the cable into the unit and then the other end of the cable to the USB port on my PC. The software detected the unit and I updated it with the latest database. So far so good. I then took it out to the car, plugged it into the battery pack and left it to detect the satellites it needs....which it did within a minute or so. On to a winner here, I thought. What were all those other buyers doing for it not to work? I drove to my dental appointment and it picked up the mobile detector site displaying orange lights. Excellent! I then came out from my dental appointment and switched it on. The green sweeping lights didn't go off, even after 10 minutes of driving. I unplugged it and plugged it back in....same thing. When I got home, after another 10 minutes, I left it in the car trying to detect the satellites in the same position it successfully did manage to find them about an hour before. Nothing. So I took it out of the car and placed it in the middle of my drive with a completely open view of the sky and still nothing. I unplugged it and plugged it back in, again leaving it on my drive and it still didn't pick up the satellites. So, the company's view about leaving it for 5 minutes before you drive off is also rediculous because it just isn't practical to do this especially if you have hard-wire it in. In short, my experience of the product is awful after at first being pleasantly surprised. It's a shame because it's ideal for those who want to plug and play and to not have to bother with getting their phone out, sticking it to the dash and starting the phone's app. For me, I like to turn on the ignition and drive. If the unit took 2 minutes to find the satelites, then that would be acceptable but as I write this it has been on my drive for 20 with a clear view of the sky and it's still searching. If I were you and were reading this, I would think again about buying the v4e. It's cheap for a reason i.e. it doesn't work. Save your money and either buy a better one or get an app for your phone and try and put up with the bother of setting it up every time. Bring back the Novus Piccolo, I say. that was tiny and reliable. This Inforad is rubbish.

Pros: It has a small footprint. When it works, it works well. The battery pack will keep it alive for hours on a fairly short charge. The little non-slip dash mount sticky pad is brilliant. The sound is plenty loud enough, if a little tinny. The flashing lights are also effective in grabbing your attention. It warns when approaching fixed camera positions, and gives a different warning if you are exceeding the speed limit as you approach. Cons: It does not get on with my car's heat reflective windscreen (refusing to get a satellite lock a lot of the time) in spite of claiming to be using the SirfStar III GPS chipset (which isn't supposed to have this issue.) Even given clear glass, it sometimes fails to get a satellite lock, requiring the power to be disconnected and reattached. The free camera database doesn't include mobile locations (£2.99 a month if you want those.) I had lots of problems updating the database because I couldn't get the drivers to load on two different PC's. I eventually found drivers that fixed this at http://www.ifamilysoftware.com/news37.html . E-mailing their support address got me a standard response that didn't fix the problem (luckily, I found the other drivers.) The power plugs and sockets do not seem to be of the highest quality, and sometimes need a jiggle to get the device to power on. One lead is provided for both in car power and upgrading the database, so if you do a tidy install in the car, you have to take your laptop out to the car to update the database (spare leads are available as a cost option.) Overall: Far from perfect, but good value at £25. I would not have been happy paying £50 for it though.