Baofeng UV-5R Two-Way Radio Review

It's a radio that's great to take with you in places you might not want to take your $250.00 radio. Places like into the inner city, the beach, white water rafting, or Mars. It will melt on Mars, that might make a good video.
The BaoFeng UV-5R is a compact hand held transceiver providing 4 watts in the frequency range of 136-174 MHz and 400-480 MHz. It is a compact, economical HT that includes a special VHF receive band from 65 - 108 MHz which includes the regular FM broadcast band. Dual watch and dual reception is supported. You get up to 128 memories. Other features include: selectable wide/narrow, battery save function, VOX, DCS/CTCSS encode, key lock and built in flashlight. Selectable frequency steps include: 2.5, 5, 6.25, 10, 12.5 and 25 kHz. RF power may be selected at 4 or 1 watts. This radio comes with an SMA-Female antenna, flexible antenna, BL-5 Li-ion battery (7.4V 1500 mAh), belt clip, wrist strap, AC adapter (8.4V 600ma) and drop-in charging tray. This radio requires the PC03 FTDI programming cable.

• Foscam Digital Tech is the authorized US Baofeng exclusive distributor of the U-5R V2+. US based warranty service for this listing is exclusively provided by Foscam Digital Tech out of our office in Houston, TX, (no shipping to China).
• Frequency Range: 136-174 / 400-479.995 MHz. Metallic upgraded, durable housing. English user manual included.
• Upgraded 2014 Bright & easy to read two-color LED display.
• Compatible with UV-5R 3800mah and 3600mah Extended Batteries.
• More enhanced construction and features than previous UV-5R and UV-5RA. Helpful programming guides available at Baofengradio.us

The price of these radios combined with the sold feel and capability make this a solid 5 star radio. If the cost was 70-100$ I would put the money down on Yaesu or similar brand, but when I can buy almost 10 to 1 it is an easy decision. T
The radio has a quality and durable feel to it without being too heavy, says solidly on my dash with a small strip of velcro. I was surprised at the small size of the radio at first, not in a bad way, just thought it would be larger. It can fit on the shoulder strap of a backpack without being too heavy or large that it gets in the way.
Using CHIRP to program the radios was easy and within an hour or two of getting the radios I felt very comfortable using it and had no need of referencing the manual or any YouTube videos. Using the radio day to day is easy and with the decent memory size I don't have to change much to use it in areas around the state. The battery has been great, a few days of lot of listening and occasional TX and there will still be some life left.
The radio does receive regular FM radio stations and I use it more than I expected. It receives much better than my car radio although there is a lot of overlap making certain stations unintelligible if there is another nearby using the same freq. While it is in FM Radio mode, you still RX on your selected station
So far, for the price, I can't complain. BUT IT's NOT A $250.00 radio either. To go with this, I ordered a Genuine Nagoya NA-771 SMA Female Antenna and a Baofeng 3800mAH battery (for those places I go where chargers are far and few between).
It has an easy to read display that lights up, a keypad that also lights when programming or TX/RXing. An A or B Channel Selection, a small LED flashlight, 127 Channel Memory, High/Low power output, Scan, a FM Radio, and Extended Frequencies. It comes preset with what I would call commercial frequencies, those set aside by the FCC for business use.
So, with that in mind, it's not a TOY either. It's a Chinese HAM radio that just happens to give you frequency choices that you might not legally be able to broadcast on…with wattage you can't really control!!! You should know the FCC rules if you have a license. Power output is either High or Low. High measures around 4 watts and Low measures around 1 watt. This much power on some channels may not be acceptable. Now that you have been warned…
You can program FMRS/MURS, Marine, Weather and everything in-between. The included Baofeng programming software is not much. I downloaded CHIRP and am pleased with my results. It makes light work instead of having to go through all the menu items on the radio. CHIRP is open source, so it's free. Yes, there are Hacks out there to extend your range, but I just wouldn't go there if I were you. Not worth the expense the FCC will want to impose on you, or the vacation time you will have to take.
What the Baofeng UV-5R Radio doesn't have are the multiple banks of memory or cool duplexing that you see in the higher priced radios. The radio is Dual Band, but not true Dual Band. You can listen to only one channel at a time, Channel A or Channel B. Either A, or B, but not both. It does scan, but it only scans one channel at a time. It will scan Channel A or Channel B, but not both. There are some slight programming variations to allow you a preferred TX channel, but that's as sophisticated as it gets. No bells, it does have a whistle. More like a siren actually. A Woo-wooo-wooo siren.
It's got a plastic case and is not waterproof. There is no built-in GPS, APRS, mapping software or inflatable life rafts either. It also does not make coffee. It's a $35.00 radio, okay?
I like the price. I like the fact that if you are a new HAM Technician, you will love the the price to get into the HAM radio community quickly. This is something that would store well in case of emergencies. I like it because you can get two or three of these for the price of a higher priced radio. It's cool for the price! And if this one busted, I would get another one.

This Baofeng UV-5R Handset comes with 12 months warranty. Brought to you by the leader in electronic devices as well as Cheap Two-way Radios, www.tagreat.com.