Midland GXT1050VP4 GMRS Two-Way Radio (50-Channel, Long Range, 142 Privacy Codes, SOS, NOAA, Rechargeable Nickle Battery, Mossy Oak Camo, 2-Pack)

Used our walkie talkies today for the first time. It made backing up our trailer so much easier. Easy to used. Clear sound. Very portable and nice size. These weren’t expensive. They are easy to read also. Haven’t had to charge them yet and they came fully charged. Great product

These radios are awesome. I took them to Jamaica and they performed wonderfully all along the beach into the hotel, and elsewhere around town. Battery Life: Lasts for days if you are just listening, otherwise transmitting will use up power. My girlfriend used them to gab with her friend for a full hour on the maximum power setting before they got low and had to be recharged. They are rechargable and the dock is easy to use, so you don't have to feel stingy about using them since you can just plop it on the dock. Range: Great range. I took them to Negril's 7-Mile-Beach and they worked fine from several miles down the beach to inside the hotel where we were staying. These radios have a power setting, so ensure you are on "H" (high) power to get the maximum range. Back home, I was able to go through buildings and obstructions and hear clearly a mile or two away from my apartment. NOTE REGARDING RANGE: the "36-mile" range is only for ideal conditions, e.g. you are both in the middle of an empty desert on a clear day, perched on top of a cactus with tin foil wrapped around your head. Nobody really gets the full listed range of any radio and you should understand that when purchasing. However, radios tend to use the same "ideal condition" numbers, so a 22-mile radio will be less powerful than this 36-mile radio. If your goal is maximum power you can still use this number to compare the power levels of different models. These particular radios have a diagram on the back of the box listing some shorter ranges you can expect in the woods, urban areas, etc. Clarity: The other party was always clear as a bell. They really sound great. Sometimes I would her other walkie-talkie users on the channel and they didn't sound as good, so I think the clarity has to do with a good microphone in this device, as well as the high power with which they transmit. I never had any choppy or unintelligible transmissions from these radios. I wish my cell phone sounded this good. Physical form factor: They are bulky compared to small cheap radios, but not so bulky that they don't fit in a pants pocket. I don't know how durable they are since I haven't broken or damaged one, but we did use one in light rain and it was fine. (I haven't tried the included headsets). Ease of Use: This was the best point to this product. I suggest sitting with the radios and reading through the manual, trying out the settings. This only took me about ten minutes. The manual is clear and the menu system is intuitive (basically, just keep pressing the menu button to scroll through all the options. To exit the menu at any point, press the talk button). Ease of Use for someone else: Before I gave a radio to someone else I first activated the key lock, which disables all buttons except for Talk, Call, and the volume/power knob. This way my friends and girlfriend could easily use the radio without having to really learn anything. They weren't able to accidentally change channels or butt-dial a configuration change which would have cut them off from the group. All in all I'm thrilled with these radios. I've gone through several walkie-talkie sets over the years and these are by far the nicest I have encountered.

We have looking for a decent two way radio system for months and we finally have a winner (for us at least). The Midland GMRS 3000 has better sound quality than many others. The volume ,especially, is much better than previous models. We have to make a conscious effort to not dial the volume up as much as we used to. The practical effective range of any GMRS radio, regardless of brand will never be as high as manufacturers claim UNLESS you have perfect straight line of sight between the radios. However we seem to get better range out of this model when compared to previous radios. This means an effective range of approx. 1.5 mile in areas of obstructed line of sight. These are more convenient then cell phones in many cases such as shopping in crowded stores, around our property, airport terminals, cruise ships etc. Instant communication is great without having to text someone and and wait for a response. There are earpieces provided if you care to use them. Recharging the battery packs is accomplished by either placing both or either them in the desk top charger or individually with the provided USB cord. The weather stations are nice too when you need to know about alerts when planning your activities. We have not used the repeater channels yet until we are more familiar with the process. A repeater can give you much better range. This radio ALSO has Family Radio Service channels which operate at a bit less power as I understand. No license is needed for FRS usage. However, a license is required for GMRS channels. This is a 10 year license, obtainable from FCC for about 35 dollars, covers your immediate family, and no test is needed!! Remember, these won't communicate across town or in congested city areas, but, for instant contact with in range, they work very well for us!

Bought a set of these a little over two years ago for the intended purpose of using them to help herd a pack of Cub Scouts around on various outings. Originally, I needed a set of radios that would work over a mile, mile and a half range of various terrains. Tested when received over the ground I initially needed them for, mostly flat, but the longest range was not line of sight and partially screened by a copse of trees. Radios worked just fine. Since then I've used them in more varied terrains from heavily wooded to urban and in ranges of up to three miles (that one urban) with no issues. My original usage intent was at our yearly Cub Scout day camp. Sometime we would need to split off a group of the boys to go to different locations with a set of adult leaders. (Like a trip to the john, nurse or Webelos activity.) One radio would stay with the main group and one would go with the others so we'd have a means of linking up should the main group have to move on to the next activity before the others returned. I've also used them on hikes and nature walks with the pack. I'll put one at the head and one at the rear of the column in case line of sight contact has been broken. (Just try and stay in sight contact in a corn maze - LOL!) If we need to spread out even further, I have an older, cheaper set of FRS/GMS radios with less power which I can distribute through the group and we can relay messages if the lower power units don't have the juice to transmit all the way. We've also used them when spread out over a larger, urban area to co-ordinate during our Scouting for Food Drives. They've worked out well. We have an effective means of maintaining contact without resorting to shouting at each other and trying to get the others attention. Battery life has been more then sufficient for a one day outing. Bear in mind though the more you transmit, the faster the batteries are used up. That's just common sense. I love having the ability of swapping the battery packs out for AA's if necessary. This brings me to one peccadillo about these radios which is mentioned in another review, but I believe is buried in the comments section, so I'll bring it up in the actual review. When recharging one of the battery packs, even though the battery is completely recharged, when placed in the radio and switched on, the unit fails to operate. There is an easy fix for this. Simply take the battery pack out of the radio and switch it on for a while. Then replace the battery pack and the radio should function just fine. Not sure why this is, and it's certainly a bit annoying, but there ya go... In my opinion, most reviews lack a discussion of two things: First, the weather alert function of these radios work extremely well. Living in the Mid-West, weather can blow up, especially in the summer, very quickly. The safety of my Scouts is my primary mission. Being alerted to changing weather is absolutely critical. My MIL lives in a very rural area and I took these radios along when we visited last. A line of tornadoes blew through the area and these radios warned us when we needed to take cover and when it was safe to come out. Secondly, to operate these radios legally in the GRMS band at maximum power (and maximum range) you NEED an FCC license. The current cost of the license is $85.00 (although there is talk about dropping the license requirement) which seems steep when compared to the roughly $59.00 cost of the radios. However, the license is good for 5 years, which breaks the cost down to $17.00 a year. Now, obviously, your chances of getting busted by the FCC is virtually nil, but it would be my luck to be Mr. Nil. (Plus I'm using these with my Scouts, so I feel obligated to be "morally straight" and be licensed.) If you don't want to spend the money to be licensed, simply use only the FRS bands or throttle down the power on the GRMS bands. At low power you don't need a license, but be advised that you're lessening your range doing so. So, I'm pleased with these radios and do recommend them. I'd buy them again in a heartbeat. Just bear in mind the range claim is wishful thinking in the extreme. If you have needs like I outlined above I have every confidence you'll be happy with them, too.

These walkie talkies are SO FUN!!! We hunted for days for "THE BEST" walkie talkies to use on our RV trip with 2 other families. We are rookies to RV camping so we eventually asked our camping "expert" what walkie talkies they use. They recommended these. So we purchased them and the other family did too. They proved INVALUABLE as we drove from Arizona to MT Rushmore. The ability communicate between our vehicles while on the road was essential to our success and planning stops together. Wifi access was non-existent in some of the mountain ranges but these walkie talkies worked perfectly between the cars. It was SO MUCH fun to talk with each other and point out sites along the way. When one of the vehicles needed to make a stop they could just click on the walkie talkie and all families could hear the message at the same time. When we got to the campground we had to find different channels as several other campers were on our channel but we always found an available channel. One family used these for long hikes with the kids so they could always stay connected. When we got home we found the walkie talkies to continue to be a great support of our life. My husband had surgery and was in a room that I couldn't hear him when he needed something. I gave him the Walkie Talkie and he could quickly get to me. We also use them on our large property when he is outside. I know you think you can just use your phone but these are faster and you communicate instantly. Of special note..........they are really helpful when you are trying to back up your 5th wheel. LOL!! We highly recommend these!!

These were recommended by our club for quality & ease of use. We agree.

I bought the 3 pack to be able to communicate with my party in the Arizona desert. The radios worked crystal clear at nearly 3 miles, and showed no signs of weakening signals. That is as far apart as we got this time, But I believe that they will work to any reasonable distance. The headsets, now they were not made to the same standard as the radios. I have small ears and I had trouble getting one mounted on my ear. I had to stretch the ear loop to get it onto my ear. It was very uncomfortable and the mike was a great distance from my mouth. I tried to adjust it close to my mouth. It took five tries to get it bent enough to be close to my mouth, the mike ended up bent almost 45 degrees to the ear piece. Then even on max sensitivity it would only pick up my voice if I talked really loudly, and then it sometimes cut out in the middle of my transmission. It also didn’t pick up my voice all the time. Not only that but the ear loop is hard plastic and becomes uncomfortable quickly. My two companions also had the same problem. So we ditched the earpieces and just used them old school. We were more than happy with the radios and give them five stars. I will be purchasing better headsets from Midland to use with these radios. I recommend the radios for anyone wanting a great radio for short to medium range communications, these are perfect. Longer range requires more wattage. Under the right conditions and minimum obstructions, you MAY get close to the advertised distance, but if you get 3 to 5 miles, that is super for ANY GMRS radio. And for the price you can’t go wrong. For me, they perform the job that I needed with room to spare. Try them, you will be pleased. Update: Last night I was sitting in my RV and started playing with the radios. I asked for a radio check, expecting that any response would be from close by. I received a check from a base station that is Close to 8 miles from my location. I was inside an RV in the desert about 8 miles from town and communicated with a base station in the edge of town. Both radios were coming in loud and clear. This was in flat basically open desert. I don’t know what the range would be in town or in the woods, but I am happy with these little radios.

We might hold the all-time record for the number of these little radios that we have bought and burned through. We use them to communicate at our resort, so at any point in time we usually have 8-10 of these in use. Ideally, a business like ours should use more professional radios. But those are individually quite costly and although I presume they would work much better than these Midland radios, a high quality radio can't prevent all the accidents that befall our staff radios-- they get dropped in the lake constantly, fall into septic systems and hot tubs, get run over by the 6 wheeler, get forgotten outside a cabin and end up under a pile of leaves or snow. We've decided frequently replacing cheap radios is better than the heartbreak of replacing $300 radios. We can buy quite a few sets of these for the cost of one quality radio. So we know these radios well. First, don't even dream of a 36 mile range. A couple miles in hilly terrian, at best, on a really good day. They truly do have a better range than radios rated for 26 miles, but it's all relative. Around here, we're not always in range when we're the equivalent of a half a block apart. Keep your expectations realistic. We've used these radios since 2006. The quality has gone way down in the past 2 years. Some component they are using is not as good as it was. Reception is worse, unit life is shorter.Even the antenna is more likely to break off--that never used to happen. Midland will take them back and fix or replace them under their guarantee and we always do that for the radios that have died a natural death, without some accidental wreckage. That buys a few more months of use, but it is also inconvenient to return them. We'd say 6-10 months of good reception is the absolute best we ever get out of these radios. Getting new batteries will sometimes revive a radio for awhile longer. There are suggestions on Amazon for getting better battery packs. Battery packs are a specific shape to fit in grooves inside this radio. We would be interested in finding a better battery pack, but wonder if any other packs would fit? Using AA batteries is possible in these, but they last a very short time. We tried rechargeable AA's in them. If you use the radios often, that is a huge pain. You'll need a large collection of backup batteries to keep the radios in service all the time. The radios are quite sturdy and they actually can be dropped in the lake and recover. The back clips are well made and easily replaceable. We've found the clips on other brands of radios to be one of their greatest flaws, often breaking early, frequently not replaceable.The clip is an overlooked design aspect that is pretty important. Midland designed that well. We've tried other brands of 2 way radios, including Motorola and Cobra. Originally the Midlands always had the best transmission and reception by far. Now that Midland's quality has decreased we have a couple Motorolas and a Cobra that have equally good reception, but the radio cases are broken in some way so they are unuseable. When either of those companies get their act together in the design of the radio case and clip, they will be worth looking at again. Meanwhile, I just ordered yet another set of Midlands.