Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Great radio, had it for around 20 minutes and put it right into use for a 4th of July Fireworks Standby using the IAP (Incident Action Plan) provided by the Mutual Aide Department. I've had the UV-82 for quite a while and I loved that radio as well, picking up the UV-82HP's body alone is like picking up the UV-82 with the battery and the antenna installed. It's much heavier, and feels like a premium radio. The UV-82 survived a motorcycle accident without issue, and I expect the UV-82HP to last longer and be able to take more of a punch based on it's weight. The radio includes an ear piece that works surprisingly well. During the fireworks show, I had no issues communicating with "Field Com" who was acting as dispatch. As far as the power goes, the reviews I've seen says 7.2 Watts on High Power, not the 8 Watts that printed on the box. Not much of a big deal as the radio is more powerful even at 7.2 watts then most portable radios out there. When it comes to software upgrades to CHIRP for this radio (you have to download the daily build to be able to program this radio - but that's considered ok as the daily build is very stable.) Skipping channels is a nice feature from the scan list, as I have NOAA's station on there and it's skippable on the scan list now. They also added a nuisance channel delete function, so if there is heavy traffic on a channel you can skip it as well. If you've never used BaoFeng radios before, you'll be pleasantly surprised on what the radio can do. So much so, that I'm seeing many, many first responders buy this radio over using their department radios because it's so accessible as far as programming it for each department they work with, or the departments in their area should they get mutual aided to it. Whereas Motorola requires CPS (Consumer Programming Software) license, this you can program thought some Free and Open Source Software and that's frankly a huge advantage to this radio. The programming cable it's self is also pretty inexpensive as well being not more then 15 dollars. There is one issue that I have with this otherwise great radio, and it's not just this radio but BaoFeng radios in general. They use some very cheap screws on the back of the radio to retain the clip. The screws are pre-installed in the radio and you have to remove them too add the clip. The issue is that these are very cheap screws and fall apart with a single use and some times less. One screws fell apart on me while I was installing the clip and is now completely stripped. Quite frustrating for what is otherwise a great radio. I'm going to have to remove the screw before I can install the clip.