Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

No Better Deal Than This Radio! With all the features and accessories this comes with, I can't think of anything better to spend thirty bucks on and get so much for so little. Anybody would love this as a gift. Without going into the specifications and such that is repeated here, I will concentrate on the features: The battery lasted 18-19 hours when in scan mode. The receiver in this radio is excellent -better, stronger and clearer than my Realistic 200 Channel Scanner, the old Bearcat and the cheap Uniden 10 Channel. Get cool accessories for cheap. 4 dollar 14" antenna, 7 dollar AA battery adapter, 6 dollar USB cable, 9 dollar auto adapter pack, 7 dollar remote speaker/mic, & more. The cool little canvas case costs more than the must-have accessories at 10 bucks! -lol. I recommend buying the "SMA Female To BNC Female Convert Adaptor For Two Way Radio BaoFeng UV-5R FD-880" so you can easily & quickly disconnect your radio to & from BNC antenna connections. Wonderful support online. People have re-written the owner's manual and converted it from Ingrish to English. YouTube has tons of great video demos, instructional tutorials and reviews for this radio. Check it out! Free apps for programming and customizing the radio. (CHIRP is a good basic one.) With the software you can Upload & Download your settings, save settings, easily setup all 128 channels, offsets, Skip for scanning, customize welcome message, arrange & rearrange, create names for the frequencies/channels, etc. You don't need any software for this radio to be fully functional, but it does cost very little for the cable and helps immensely by allowing fast & easy changes instead of flipping through menus on a tiny screen over & over, while allowing you to have many different "setups & configurations" for different purposes. My "welcome message" is a description of the "setup". Saved and easily loaded and unloaded in seconds. I played the FM radio fairly loud with the LED light on for over 9 hours. The little LED light is a great feature and much brighter than I expected. I read in a review that if you get the AA battery adapter pack it will last 27 hours. I keyed the mic for '10 seconds on' and '10 seconds off' for over 30 minutes without stopping and the battery level indicator never dropped a bar. It did get a little hot on the rear-top of the radio from transmitting 5 watts almost non-stop and that is normal...just not normal use. There would be periods of silence when it would cool down more normally. Mine did not come with a European Wall Socket Adapter as shown, but it did come with the Earpiece accessory! Also, mine did not come with a software or driver disk. You can find that online for free if needed, or order the cheap USB cable and it comes with it. The PTT button (Push To Talk) is a "little weird to get used to" but once you get a feel for pressing it in the "right spot" it's fine, but I do wonder about the longevity and how it will hold up over time. The 'jeweled" design On/Off/Volume knob is strange, but I kinda like it. Unlike the newer design models, this one will stand up by itself on a desktop or fairly level surface. It will easily fit into a shirt pocket or use the included belt clip or hand strap. I love the small hand size. The buttons are not too small and allow for direct frequency entering or immediate channel selection, DTMF Telephone Tones, and once you start digging into the settings menu that has over 35 different settings and features, you start to see this is a serious little contender priced so low it's almost ridiculous. But alas, China is able to manipulate their currency and subsidize their corporations to undermine the US economy in order to bring you this little gem of a radio. The Scan Function is slow compared to "regular scanners" at around 3 channels per second. Shipping and sold through Amazon was fast & easy to return if anything is unacceptable. If you know someone who is even remotely interested in scanners, radios, camping, Ham radio, or End of the World Preppers, this is a perfect gift! Photos: RED TX Screen http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cP3X75PNL.jpg BLUE RCV SCREEN http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WIJm1HZDL.jpg -Hope this helps!