This was my first Chinese HT. I have owned several from the big three over the past 30 years. I opted for the UV-5x3 due to the mostly positive reviews of the UV-5R and addition of 220. The UV-5R is actually discontinued so the ones you see being sold on Amazon are either old stock or of questionable authenticity. This can be verified by visiting BTech's storefront, you won't find a single UV-5R. At this price point the UV-5x3 is an excellent value and almost a steal. They've eliminated all the previous bugs of the UV-5R and gave us the much underutilized 220mhz band as added candy. It performs well on all bands and about what you'd expect for a 4W HT. The supplied flexible antennas are a compromise but work well for shorter distances. I wished they provided a single tri-band antenna rather than one for 220 and one for 144/440 but there are so many affordable after-market antennas on Amazon this becomes a non-issue. Construction is very good but not equal to some Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu handhelds. Still, it's a very durable $60 radio and not $300+. As others have mentioned with the UV-5R, the UV-5x3 can be tedious to program via the keypad, it's essentially the same interface. Programming with a computer and CHIRP will make your life MUCH easier and highly recommended. Do yourself a favor and purchase the PC03 FTDI cable, it's not worth being a cheap ham and risk getting a bogus Prolific programming cable to save $8-10. My only wish for the UV-5x3 would be 200 memory channels rather then 127. Otherwise I don't know of any other radio on the market that gives you this much for so little.Now for my soapbox commentary: These cheap Chinese HT's are great for a new ham on a tight budget. I can't imagine how many of these have brought newcomers into the hobby of amateur radio, this is a good thing. On the flip side, I'm sure since these are so affordable and transmit on such a wide frequency range there's an equal amount polluting the airwaves illegally on GMRS, FRS, business band, and yes, the amateur bands. I have recently heard transmissions of what normally would be found on the CB band emanating from a wide coverage 2 meter statewide system. This will not get you any brownie points in the amateur community. Please folks, make a little effort to know what's legal or not. Getting your ham Tech license is a trivial process compared to what it used to be.