Im always amused by how people ‘measure’ quality. Brands and price of course play a part, but a cheap icom cannot be, by definition somehow better, because it is cheap? A baofeng, despite what people say, is not a bad radio. Its just using a design that has inherent problems. For CERTAIN circumstances. Transmitters seem less of a problem, but if you live in a busy RF environment, the design allows phantom signals to be heard, allows strong local signals to wipe out feint ones you want to hear, and perhaps just to be a little ‘deaf’. A much better design, with decent filtering costs more and sells less well. That’s economics. I sell a lot of Icom radios, and the cheap ones really are no better than the chinese brands, however, in the bands they operate in, the lack of filtering rarely causes problems, and people happily spend extra for the brand name, getting, being honest, nothing extra. I don’t have any brand that are unreliable. I do have brands that break dropped from a chest pocket onto concrete. Others seem to bounce better. In virtually every sales area nowadays there is a Baofeng equivalent. Hifis, cars, plant equipment, 3d printers, toys, even aeroplanes, but many, like cars and planes do have standards that must be met. Everybody learns to fly in a Cessna 152, been about for ever, but once people pass, most buy a ‘better’ aircraft. Its not really a Baofeng equivalent, but the same idea. A cheapish product, with loads of rough edges, but one that does the job. Probably have to accept my analogy is a bit flawed as clearly wings dont fall off, or wheels collapse regularly, but maybe better to say its a cheap Icom or Yaesu? You get the idea?
