Uniden LRD6275SWS Radar Detector

Installing and configuring the detector took less than five minutes, as there are only a few buttons on the top. There's a highway/city mode button on the left, a button that toggles audio and audiovisual alarms in the center, and a mute button on the right. The display uses simple LEDs that indicate what radar band it has detected and to depict the signal strength. These alerts are accompanied by distinct audio alarms that, after a little familiarization, told us what type of signal was hitting us without our looking at the display.

The device worked best in city mode, where its sensitivity is reduced. False alarms were infrequent, although we did notice that the detection range was much less than more expensive units we've tested. Police cars and stationary radars were usually less than one city block away when the detector's alarm sounded, and we certainly would have been caught had we been speeding.

In highway mode we saw opposite results. The LRD 6275SWS chirped every few seconds, whether we were in the middle of town or the middle of a cornfield. Also, the reported signals were of varying strength, so we were rarely able to distinguish a false alarm from a real threat. The LRD 6275SWS did detect police radar, but was also by seemingly triggered by many other radar and infrared sources as we drove by. Overall, this model didn't perform well enough in our tests to garner a recommendation. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Easy to install and configure
• All-band radar detection plus laser detection

• Too many false alarms in highway mode
• Small detection range in city mode
• LED lights can't be dimmed as LCD lights can