These are solid little radios, for a price of under $50 I'm very happy with the purchase. Sound is clear, they're highly configurable, the base station is well-designed, and the build quality seems good. The range is better than I'd hoped, I only needed half a mile, and they manage that easily enough, even with many big obstacles in the way.I have plenty of small complaints, but make no mistake... at the price, I'm still happy with the purchase.
The belt clip looks absolutely horrid... it sticks way out, doesn't clamp to the radio well, and is a flimsy bit of plastic that flexes all the time, and is sure to break pretty quickly. Frankly, a basic design like two screw holes and a flat piece of plastic (or metal!) would be an infinitely superior belt clip, and I don't see why they went out of their way to sell it with this more expensive and needlessly elaborate junk.
Other models of Motorola FRS radios are water-resistant, while not costing any more than these units. If I had a bit more time to shop around, I would have purchased those, instead. Across Motorola's product line, I see low-end radios that are water resistant, and high-end models that strangely are NOT, splitting the market, and making me very weary about buying other Motorola radios in general.
The PTT button is far too small, smaller than the "glove-friendly" buttons on the face, and really just a little bit of rubber over two tiny buttons, easy to miss and requires the added complexity of clicking the top or the bottom half of it to select power level... a real mess, and a far cry from the one big solid plastic PTT button on Motorola's nice big industrial and mil-spec radios.
With FRS, you should expect a range of about 1-mile. You can only legally use 7 of the channels without getting a license from the FCC before-hand. It's pretty ridiculous that you can buy these radios at walmart for $50, put in batteries, turn them on, and hit transmit, and you're violating FCC rules, and could face severe fines. The FCC has proposed to relax these rules, but 2.5 years later they haven't decided yet.
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