The original road angel won many friends with it's combination of GPS and laser detection technology, this revised Road Angel 2 is a more attractive beast with a cool blue backlit LCD screen and a slimmer profile. After cracking open the box and performing an update via your PC using the inbuilt USB 2.0 connection it was time to fix the road angel to LP's motor. The supplied bracket is more than acceptable for holding the detector to the screen a bit like a stick on Garfield, power is from the cigarette lighter adaptor of which there are 2 in the box.

The initial power up and GPS lock can take up to 45 mins but after about 5 the road angel came to life, the blue screen shows the time, direction of travel and speed of the car, it seemed very accurate. As you approach a speed camera site within the GPS database the screen switches to a backlit red and a voice warning you of the camera followed by a series of bleeps which get more repetitive as you close on the camera location.

With the road angel 2 safely clamped t the windscreen we drove a few routes around north London that are covered in speed cameras, the road angel identified 100% of the fixed sites and even knew about a few mobile locations (not that they were occupied when we were there). The benefit of a GPS system is the lack of false positives that some of the radar detectors suffer from, the Bel 550 is about the best but even it can get upset by petrol stations of all things!

By night the blue backlit screen is cool looking but we have to say that the red screen and loud bleeping is a bit of an overkill, we know its meant to get you attention but perhaps it would be good if you could tone it down a bit.

Now for the extras, the main one is the laser detection, road angel have included this in all their products as it is based on their laser alert model. Sadly no matter how hard we try you can never find a police patrol with a laser gun when you want one, perhaps they are all to busy hiding behind bushes? We also found the ability to get an exact location from the GPS system the "rescue loc" gives latitude and longitude which should enable the AA or RAC to find you (we assume they can use mapping data).

The system does require a subscription to keep receiving updated maps, the first 6 months are included in the purchase price a further year currently costs £49 with cheaper options if you choose to buy 2 or 3 years.

Overall this is a quality system and an improvement on the classic road angel, the database containing 50,000 speed cameras is highly accurate and frequently updated. Price at £399 this its a serious bit of kit and it does therefore have a serious price tag, but for those with a few points of their license it can easily be worth the cash.

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