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When I was searching for a second Baofeng, I came across the UV-B5. What caught my eye first was the manual tuning knob at the top of the radio, a great replacement to the flashlight that I think is a good feature but never end up using. When I opened up the box and picked up the radio, It felt miles better than the oversize Tylenol shape of the UV-5R. The only issue with build quality is that the belt clip screws are too short. That was easily fixed by swapping the screws with the UV-5R. On the left side of the radio, there are three keys. The PTT button, and the monitor/backlight button. The third is for activating the flashlight on the UV-B6. On the right there are the 3.5mm microphone jack and 2.5mm speaker jack. On the top is the dial for tuning the radio. It makes changing menu options miles faster and easier than every other Baofeng. The battery is 2000MAH and lasts just about as long as my UV-5R. The stock antenna does a very good job, surprisingly. A Nagoya NA-771 made little difference talking on distant repeaters. The manual is also quite good and easy(ish) to understand. This radio's transmitter is advertised at 5 watts, but according to my power meter it is as follows. VHF 146.520: 4.3 watts UHF 462.600: 3.8 watts This is almost the same as my UV-5R. Nothing special here. Now the Receiver is where this radio kills every other Baofeng. The receiver does get overloaded, but it's quite hard to overload it. The squelch also actually works on VHF, unlike the UV-5R. The UV-B5, in my opinion is the best Beofeng. I bought mine for only $25 brand new. The value is great and the radio is almost perfect aside from a few flaws.

Hello, Riley, and welcome to MyGMRS forums - Nice to have you with us.