Had one for years and its a pretty descent detector and battery life lasted for me pretty good. Changed like every couple of months depending on use (used alkaline batteries) but with rechargable ones you could probably get better/longer use. However recently sold it and got a Passport 9500xi and I can attest to the fact that it is MUCH more sensitive to signals as far as range and police bands used. It picked up stuff waaay farther out than my Solo did. In fact made me very glad that I hardwired a connection in my car and got the 9500xi. Almost got a V1 but wanted GPS and memory functunality which it didn't have. Don't know about the Solo S3 tho...check the reviews.