Baofeng and Baofeng Tech

[WSHH493]

Newby here. Baofeng and baofeng tech. Are they the same company? How are they equipment wise?

[SteveShannon]

3 minutes ago, WSHH493 said:

Newby here. Baofeng and baofeng tech. Are they the same company? How are they equipment wise?

They are not the same company. Baofeng Tech is an American company formed to import and sell Baofeng radios.  Their goal was to add value by providing on-shore service for the products they sell, unlike many of the other sellers of Baofeng.

[UncleYoda]

What Steve said, plus Baofeng the company is actually Pofung.  Not that anyone in America cares as long as it still has Baofeng on the front label.

[WRTC928]

What @SteveShannon said. However, Baofeng Tech has branched out in recent years and are having some equipment made to their specifications by other companies. That's probably why they have kind of backed away from Baofeng Tech in favor of BTech. As a general rule, the Baofeng products they sell are a bit more expensive than from other suppliers, but they often have a couple of extra features and they do back up their products and provide support for them.

[TerriKennedy]

On 7/1/2025 at 1:28 PM, WRTC928 said:

What @SteveShannon said. However, Baofeng Tech has branched out in recent years and are having some equipment made to their specifications by other companies. That's probably why they have kind of backed away from Baofeng Tech in favor of BTech. As a general rule, the Baofeng products they sell are a bit more expensive than from other suppliers, but they often have a couple of extra features and they do back up their products and provide support for them.

My understanding is that if the radio itself is branded as BTECH, it is contract manufactured for them to their specs (by someone other than Baofeng). If the radio itself is branded as Baofeng (regardless of whether the box only says BTECH), it is a customized model from Baofeng which is usually (always?) exclusive to BTECH. For example, the UV-82HP is a BTECH exclusive, although there are generic tri-power UV-82s.

My work on the BF-F8HP Pro (a BTECH exclusive) shows that BTECH is listening to customer feedback (many requests from Facebook, here, and other places) and it has been incorporated into the two firmware updates released so far, with more to come). It is also quite ahead of other analog Baofeng handhelds in terms of features, bug fixes, and programming software (Disclaimer: I write the Windows CPS programming software for the BF-F8HP Pro and co-manage firmware development, as well as dabbling in documentation. However, nothing I post should be considered an official statement of BTECH.)

Speaking of the BF-F8HP Pro, if you use coupon code "CPS" at checkout you'll get 20% off (on that model only, and only on the BTECH website, not on Amazon). I should point out that the BF-F8HP Pro is not type approved for GMRS use, but since the equipment reviews rules were relaxed a while ago to allow discussions of non-GMRS equipment due to the overlap between the GMRS and ham communities, mentioning it here should be OK.

[TerriKennedy]

On 7/1/2025 at 1:03 PM, UncleYoda said:

What Steve said, plus Baofeng the company is actually Pofung.  Not that anyone in America cares as long as it still has Baofeng on the front label.

Technically, they're "Fujian [Nan’an] Baofeng Electronics Co."

The Pofung business was because they never trademarked Baofeng in the US (it is a place name, so it would be like trying to trademark "Miami"). But someone trademark-squatted in the US and it took Baofeng quite some time to get the trademark assignment invalidated and assigned to them. During that period, radios intended for import into the US were labeled Pofung.

Any Baofeng OEM customer can request whatever labeling they want (within reason, presumably Baofeng would reject a request to label any of their products as "Motorola"). Some of their OEM customers seem to still be requesting the Pofung branding, simply because it isn't as well-known in the US.

[UncleYoda]

The story I heard wasn't about a place name.  It was that Baofeng is a family name and the family objected to its use for these radios.  That's when I first started seeing Pofung as a brand.  But I wasn't referring to branding but rather what it shows on the manufacturer label on the back of a recent radio I bought.  And as far as that Fuji Nana stuff goes, I've also seen other stuff like Quansheng Electronics.  It's apparently whatever they want to call it - neither companies nor brands mean the same thing in China as here.  My UV-5G says "Po Fung Electronic(HK) International Group Company" and that's from 2022.

 

p.s.  I don't know what your Pro version is but the BFF9 I got (supposed to have been an improved BFF8 with 8 watts like an HP) was terrible, extremely low power on 440 and same as 5W models on 2m.  Worst UV5R type I ever got.

[SteveShannon]

2 hours ago, TerriKennedy said:

Technically, they're "Fujian [Nan’an] Baofeng Electronics Co."

The Pofung business was because they never trademarked Baofeng in the US (it is a place name, so it would be like trying to trademark "Miami"). But someone trademark-squatted in the US and it took Baofeng quite some time to get the trademark assignment invalidated and assigned to them. During that period, radios intended for import into the US were labeled Pofung.

Any Baofeng OEM customer can request whatever labeling they want (within reason, presumably Baofeng would reject a request to label any of their products as "Motorola"). Some of their OEM customers seem to still be requesting the Pofung branding, simply because it isn't as well-known in the US.

Thank you for sharing your insider knowledge.  

[WRYS709]

4 hours ago, TerriKennedy said:

My work on the BF-F8HP Pro (a BTECH exclusive) ...

Are the accessories on this model compatible with UV-5R accessories, specifically the higher capacity UV-5R batteries?

[UncleYoda]

The battery isn't - the contacts are on the inside face.  It's a 5RM or 5RH variant not a UV-5R.

[WRYS709]

4 hours ago, UncleYoda said:

The battery isn't - the contacts are on the inside face.  It's a 5RM or 5RH variant not a UV-5R.

Thanks! 

I will stick with my RD-5R and DM-5R with memory chip upgrade modifications: I have all the batteries I need, except maybe a USB-C or two. 

They do Ham 2 meters and 440 MHz, GMRS and MURS and DMR. 

[Majik]

I just wish there weren’t 40 varieties of radios from them. It gets hard to figure out what’s different about all of them and which ones are newer. They have a dizzying amount of models. 

[TerriKennedy]

11 hours ago, WRYS709 said:

Are the accessories on this model compatible with UV-5R accessories, specifically the higher capacity UV-5R batteries?

They're compatible with the newer full-color screen UV5-family models. BTECH has a cigarette lighter battery eliminator available for purchase now, and I believe an official BTECH extended-capacity battery is coming. But anything from the full-color-screen UV5-family models should work, even if not from BTECH. [Again, not an official position of BTECH.]

[TerriKennedy]

4 hours ago, Majik said:

I just wish there weren’t 40 varieties of radios from them. It gets hard to figure out what’s different about all of them and which ones are newer. They have a dizzying amount of models. 

Baofeng? Or BTECH?

Baofeng will private label anything for anybody, as long as they meet the minimum quantity. Baofeng also re-uses model numbers for similar or utterly different products, and many of their products have quite short production lifetimes.

BTECH tries to have one product in each market segment, customized for them and available for a long time - you can still buy a UV-82HP from them if you really want one.

[TerriKennedy]

12 hours ago, UncleYoda said:

The story I heard wasn't about a place name.  It was that Baofeng is a family name and the family objected to its use for these radios.  That's when I first started seeing Pofung as a brand.  But I wasn't referring to branding but rather what it shows on the manufacturer label on the back of a recent radio I bought.  And as far as that Fuji Nana stuff goes, I've also seen other stuff like Quansheng Electronics.  It's apparently whatever they want to call it - neither companies nor brands mean the same thing in China as here.  My UV-5G says "Po Fung Electronic(HK) International Group Company" and that's from 2022.

p.s.  I don't know what your Pro version is but the BFF9 I got (supposed to have been an improved BFF8 with 8 watts like an HP) was terrible, extremely low power on 440 and same as 5W models on 2m.  Worst UV5R type I ever got.

Baofeng is indeed a place name (in fact, several) in China. Here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baofeng_County (although that is 12 hours from the factory). Right around the factory (Changfu Industrial Zone, XIamei Town of Nan'an City, Quanzhou, Fujian province, China) there's also Baofeng Building Materials Hang, Baofeng Printing Shop, Baofeng Household Appliances and so forth. There's also a Dalian Baofeng Machinery Manufacturing Company elsewhere that makes large metal rollers.

Here is the scoop on the Pofung business.

I don't know what your BFF9 was. There is only one BF-F8HP Pro, it is only available from BTECH, and it went on sale in October, 2024: https://baofengtech.com/product/bf-f8hp-pro/

[UncleYoda]

So, did those places complain about the radios?  Anyway, I never claimed there weren't places with the name.  Just isn't relevant IMO.

Everyone can read their own labels so no need to argue that point further.  As I wrote earlier, I don't think anyone else cares.  Most people still don't pronounce it correctly either. :)

My opinion is BTech doesn't have any radios that are unique, just some minor tweaks and a custom label.

[TerriKennedy]

1 hour ago, UncleYoda said:

My opinion is BTech doesn't have any radios that are unique, just some minor tweaks and a custom label.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and since this is a (mostly) GMRS groups of users, I don't know that you'll find [m]any dissenting voices here.

I'll just point out that BTECH had working, final BF-F8HP Pro hardware in April 2024 at firmware version 9 when I came on board, and my continuous "here's a bug", "we need to make this better", "we need this new feature" meant that the radios shipped 6 months later at the beginning of October 2024 at V29, including a complete re-write of the menus by me to real US English.

V33 was released in the middle of November, 2024 to fix a few bugs we knew about (the radios had to be initially programmed during manufacturing) and we managed to get in fixes for a few user-reported bugs and quite a few user-requested features within the 6 weeks between V29 and V33. V44 shipped in mid-April, 2025 with the CPS 1.2.5m that supports all of the new V33 and V44 features being released at the beginning of June, 2025. V44 and its CPS add quite a few features requested by users and lays the foundation for additional improvements.

These radios are updatable by the user, with the same cable used for programming, and any upgrade problems will either be addressed by support email (when possible) or via warranty replacement( (if needed). I'll also mention that nobody has ever bricked a BF-F8HP Pro while updating it (and believe me, I've had many chances as I've done every firmware release from V8 through V44, across 9 radios (ranging from hand-built engineering samples to pre-production units to early production, and then finally a bunch of production units). Many of these firmware features are exclusive to BTECH, either in perpetuity or for various numbers of years. There's no 'generic' version of this radio and there won't ever be. The user-updatable firmware means that a radio you bought on release day, today, or in the future will all be able to run the latest firmware.

Even before V29 and the radio's release, I was showing it to select users (it had no labeling except for some marker dots in the battery compartment, and I changed the official boot screen to an actual picture of a boot to not give away where it would eventually be coming from). The universal response was "Wow! A Baofeng that doesn't <bleep>!". Before you dismiss it, take a look at the Release Notes below, which shows what has changed in the firmware between V29 and V44:

vers-old.pdf

[SteveShannon]

8 hours ago, TerriKennedy said:

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and since this is a (mostly) GMRS groups of users, I don't know that you'll find [m]any dissenting voices here.

I'll just point out that BTECH had working, final BF-F8HP Pro hardware in April 2024 at firmware version 9 when I came on board, and my continuous "here's a bug", "we need to make this better", "we need this new feature" meant that the radios shipped 6 months later at the beginning of October 2024 at V29, including a complete re-write of the menus by me to real US English.

V33 was released in the middle of November, 2024 to fix a few bugs we knew about (the radios had to be initially programmed during manufacturing) and we managed to get in fixes for a few user-reported bugs and quite a few user-requested features within the 6 weeks between V29 and V33. V44 shipped in mid-April, 2025 with the CPS 1.2.5m that supports all of the new V33 and V44 features being released at the beginning of June, 2025. V44 and its CPS add quite a few features requested by users and lays the foundation for additional improvements.

These radios are updatable by the user, with the same cable used for programming, and any upgrade problems will either be addressed by support email (when possible) or via warranty replacement( (if needed). I'll also mention that nobody has ever bricked a BF-F8HP Pro while updating it (and believe me, I've had many chances as I've done every firmware release from V8 through V44, across 9 radios (ranging from hand-built engineering samples to pre-production units to early production, and then finally a bunch of production units). Many of these firmware features are exclusive to BTECH, either in perpetuity or for various numbers of years. There's no 'generic' version of this radio and there won't ever be. The user-updatable firmware means that a radio you bought on release day, today, or in the future will all be able to run the latest firmware.

Even before V29 and the radio's release, I was showing it to select users (it had no labeling except for some marker dots in the battery compartment, and I changed the official boot screen to an actual picture of a boot to not give away where it would eventually be coming from). The universal response was "Wow! A Baofeng that doesn't <bleep>!". Before you dismiss it, take a look at the Release Notes below, which shows what has changed in the firmware between V29 and V44:

vers-old.pdf 64.43 kB · 3 downloads

Terri,

Again I want to express my appreciation for your calm and thoughtful comments and informative posts in response to curmudgeonliness.  Happy Independence Day!