REVIEWED: BAOFENG AR-152

The Baofeng AR-152…is it just another milsim clone or is it really a more rugged Baofeng? Is is worth the $100 price tag? Is it just a UV-5R chipset in a bigger body? Does it have the same issues that older Baofengs have when it comes to filtering? And again, what makes it worth the price, other than a cool-guy looking case?

These are probably all questions folks have since they popped on the scene. Over on the forum the little radio that could generated quite a buzz when this new variant appeared. Color a lot of people skeptical, because looks aside, the substantial increase in price makes many think twice. The UV-5R is great for $25, but its $25. Its seriously lacking when it jumps four times in price if the quality doesn’t. And if there’s no better build quality, then there’s no point. Life is nothing without a leap of faith every now and then so I picked up two as cadavers and headed to Washington’s Scout and RTO Courses with them – if they can survive the Cascades, they can survive anything.

One thing I want to point out is that the venerable UV-5R is more rugged than people usually give it credit. I certainly wouldn’t want to do a Scuba insertion with it, but, plenty of guys have ran them on their kits in class with mud, rain, snow in a couple cases, and heat and they’ve worked fine. I’ve had a pair of them since they bust on the scene in 2012 that have slogged it out in every RTO Course, even getting dropped in a frozen creek one January a few years back. I left the mud on it.

That said, small buttons make a challenge for gloved hands. The battery locking mechanism could be far more robust, and the volume knob get bumped way too easy (ask Mike how that happens). There’s plenty of workarounds, sure, but it would be nice to have a more robust package. There’s also that well known, pesky filtering issue that breaks squelch non-stop. And that’s why I got excited when I found the AR-152.

Personally I’m not much on aesthetics…I just want functional gear that works. The AR-152 is no doubt aimed at the milsim crowd one one hand, but form certainly follows function. The Harris PRC-152 was a big step up from the older Thales 148 MBITR in my opinion, being easier to use for the most part and was certainly simple to troubleshoot in the field. The front panel was designed with gloved hands in mind. The Baofeng version follows this trait, with large buttons and a positive click when pressed. There is very obviously a membrane behind the keypad as well. Easy to use, easy to program from the front panel, simple to get small team communications.

The battery is another interesting animal. One of the best attributes of the old UV-5R is the battery life. The extended 3800mAh battery usually lasts for three days or so on standby. This newer case is not just larger for looks – it houses a 12,000mAh battery. Yeah, you read that right. Easily the largest capacity battery in a handheld on the market today with a yuuuuge run time. I had it on standby during the Scout Course, using it to coordinate the teams on the ground during the scenarios and it never left a full charge. It remained so during the RTO Courses, and I never recharged it in ten days’ time. Not too shabby. Pushing 10w on its highest setting, this thing functions well as a base unit with a Jungle Antenna in the field just as well as it does on a chest rig for inter-team use. The radio also did not experience the random breaking of squelch due to poor filtering, and it performed to all expectations.

The build quality is overall surprisingly high, sporting heavy-duty high-impact plastic over a metal internal body that feels similar to the body Harris uses for the actual 152, slightly lighter but robust. The antenna connection remains the same SMA as the older designs, and I would have liked to have seen a BNC instead, but this is easily remedied with an adapter. The mic port remains the same two prong Kenwood version that everyone knows, and while there’s more robust connectors out there, the backwards compatibility with a huge aftermarket for mics, programing and data cables is nice to see. My lone complaint is the battery charging plug. Why they went to the lengths they did to ruggedize this radio, while leaving the port open is beyond me. I put a piece of duck tape on it, but still.

Overall its worth the money. Its not about looks. The radio is a robust, heavyweight design, and while internally it functions the exact same way as its cheaper little brothers (it even uses the UV-5X setting on Chirp) its done in a far more survivable package for field use. I definitely recommend it and plan on picking up a few more.

-NCS