I have had both radar detectors and was a very loyal supporter of escort for years, i probably own almost every version they made since I started driving. The last one was 9500 series in blue I really like it a lot, especially the blue led display was very easy on the eyes at nigh. Yes the gps was a nice feature but what pissed me off were two things, every time they came out with some thing new you had to buy a new detector and the GPS feature.
Let me goto into the GPS feature that you speak so highly of it is the worse part of the detector. I locked out a signal a few days earlier as I come back into the same spot not a single beep from it,the bam state troopers not one but two running a speed trap needles to say that was the last day I trusted it.
Put it on eBay sold it for almost what I paid for it, and bought the V1. The v1 is much better at detecting alerts sooner and telling you the direction plus if you add on the Bluetooth option the details of the alert are even better then Esctort's. If you use the Bluetooth you can blacken out the display an shows on your phone, very nice for the not friendly radar states with the blend mount mine is almost invisible to the eye.
But the real thing I like about it is I have only updated mine twice in almost 10'years.
Also I have only gotten pulled over twice since I owned mine and both were my fault,one I forget to turn it on and second time I want in a rental and left it home.
All I can say is you have to but what you like and trust, the V1 has had better ratings by CR and Road and track, and cost value for me about total of 600 including the updates over 10 years. The number of escorts radar detectors I owned in about the same time frame was easily double some were roughly about 1200-1300 dollars.