Customer Reviews

Midland GXT900VP4 2-Way 42-Channel Radio Pair

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I thought this would be a good product, but it exceeded my expectations. Unlike many of the other GMRS radios on the market, the audio on this one is very good. This one is not so small that you will lose it. This is my third pair that I've owned, and they have extremely good range compared to the others I've tried. I have been very happy with them. They also have very good belt clips unlike many of the other brands. The voice scrambler works very well. I would highly recommend this product.

The radios are fun and basically work as described, except:
- They are not waterproof. We accidentally dropped one into the lake, for a second, in about 1 inch of water. I ended up opening the radio, and drying it off with a hairdryer inside. It did work after that.
- The 30 miles, mmmm, maybe 3 miles is better. Throw some trees in, and it does not even give you 1.5 miles. On the lake, I did manage to get about 3 miles, line of site, with no problems. I think it can do more, but I wonder if it can do 30.

The weather feature is great, and automatically alarms to bad weather, in the boat this was a great feature to have. I like the scramble and encryption functions, you are on your own on a FMRS frequency. Nice desktop charger, place them there every night, and they are ready for the next day.

All in all, great for the price, but they are not waterproof and I don't think you can get 30 miles out of them.

I have used 2-way radios to communicate with others in my motorycle group for a few years. The Midland GXT900 is advertised as a 5 watt unit and showed excellent range, durability, and easy interface with my Starcom. Range on these consumer 2-way's is subjective, so I can only state that it works as good or better than past 2 watt units I have used. I have recommended the GXT900 to several motorcycle accessory dealers over the Cobra LI7200 due to the Cobra's battery saver mode interfering with the Starcom interface by muting the speakers. When you plug any accessories into the Cobra it automatically reduces the GMRS "Hi" power to "Med" power. The Midland stays at full power in GMRS mode when the accessories are plugged in. Battery lasted much longer than prior units I have had. I ran one unit for 2 days before recharging.

One minor dislike is the charger light never goes out. There is a battery level indicator on the screen, and the manual states clearly how long to charge the units to full.

WE selected and purchased these radios for use as part of our physical plant's disaster recovery and business continuity plan. They were affordable, accessories were readily available and extra batteries were also readily affordable, and (assuming that we might be facing a nuclear threat) they were small enough so that many of them could fit in our lead-protected vault to avoid having them rendered useless by the ensuing EMP (electromagnetic pulse) accompanying any nuclear explosion, and in our simulations of Nuclear, CHemical and Biological warfare, these devices performed as well if not better than Government-graded devices from Motorola -and were at one-tenth the price. In my opinion, two pairs of these, plus four extra sets of batteries should be a part of every family's disaster preparedness kit - right next to your duct tape and window film. We all hope nothing happens, but if it should, it is a great comfort to know that you are not alone, and it is a sure bet that if major transmission towers are knocked out, the civil and military authorities will be monitoring these FMRS frequencies for signs of individulas needing medical attention, rescue, or repatriation.

Best there is (now in year 2008) even though "30 Mile Range" isn't possible where I live. I live in suburbs and got 5 miles at best on max settings. The weather scanner is a nice feature that beats waiting for the news on tv hands down and I dare say better than using the internet.

Instead of re-typing the problems that I have had with this radio, I will just copy/paste the email that I wrote to Technical Support at Midland Radio. In summary, the first pair of radios had a defective PTT button. I got a replacement pair. Also, the accessory output volume level is not high enough to use a speaker mic or any other sort of external speaker. In-ear boom mics, such as the accessories provided with the radios, work fine b/c they are in your ear and do not require a high volume level. Not being able to use speaker mics with these radios is unacceptable. Keep in mind, I tried 6 different speaker mics (one of which was a Midland branded dual-prong speaker mic). See my email to Midland Radio below:

"Hello,

Due to the end of the work day at my job, it conflicts with the hours of your tech support #, which is why I am writing an email instead of calling. I recently purchased the GXT900VP4 from Circuit City. Upon opening them out of the box, it appeared that the PTT buttons on the radios were not the same. On one of the radios, the PTT was normal and when you pressed it, it "clicked" giving you the feel that it was being depressed. The other radio has a PTT button that did not click, and was rather mushy when depressed. I returned the pair of radios to Circuit City and ordered a replacement.

The replacement radios arrived a few days ago and the PTT buttons were normal. I took Midland speaker mics that I have from other radios and the XT511 emergency crank radio that I have, and I went to go for a bike ride. I tested the radios with the Midland speaker mics before I loaded up for the bike ride, and I realized that the volume was extremely low. I turned the knobs up on both radios and tested them out, and again the volume was VERY VERY low. I took the speaker mics out of the radios and tested the volume without the accessories and just using the radios' internal speaker. The volume was fine. Thinking that my speaker mics were bad, I went and took other dual-pin speaker mics that I have and gave them a shot. They too had extremely low volume and you could barely hear the transmissions. I tried the radios by themselves and the internal speaker was fine. I took the vox ear piece boom mic that came with the radios and they were at an acceptable volume level. This was probably due to the fact that they were directly in my ear. Is there a reason why speaker mics do not work with these radios? Was the output volume limited on the accessory jack?

Not really understanding why two sets of these radios were defective, I returned the replacement radios to Circuit City for a refund. I wanted to bring these 2 issues to your attention so that your product engineers could hopefully fix the issue. It would be great if speaker mics could be used with these radios, so hopefully in the future a fix will be made and I can purchase the revised version of this model (GXT900VP4). All that has to be done is increase the output volume in the 3.5mm accessory jack. On another note... I have a friend who tested the Midland GXT900VP4's (5 watt radios) against an older model of Motorola GMRS radio (T7400, only a 2 watt radio) and he claimed that the range comparison resulted in equal range performance. I am not able to agree or disagree with him, since I did not have a chance to test out the range of the radios since I returned them after the 1st issue with the PTT button, and the 2nd issue with the output volume on speaker mics. Shouldn't these radios go a longer distance than radios with a lower power output, especially since these radios were rated by the FCC with an ERP of 5.33watts? I know there are many factors that result in transmission range, but over double the ERP power should result in at least some sort of noticeable increase in range.

I am a loyal customer to Midland Radio and have been for a while now, and I must say this has been the first disappointment with one of your radios. I look forward to hearing back from you regarding these issues that I have come across and I hope to see changes to the radio so that I can purchase a pair to suit my needs. Thank you for taking the time to read my email.

-Josh G."

As many other reviewers have said, these are solid radios at a very good price. The construction is solid (although the battery compartment covers are a bit loose to inspire much confidence in the "waterproof" department), the sound quality is excellent, and the feature list is impressive.

However, Midland's post-sales support is horrendous so far. They ignore emails sent through their website, and the extent of the FAQ and other information on the support site is very poor. The user manual (which is not yet available on Midland's website) is poorly written and self-contradictory. While you can certainly figure out how to use the radios, some of the more advanced features remain mysteries even after reading the manual.

As for the radios themselves, I can identify the following negatives: the antennas are rigid and appear to be easily breakable; the control buttons are tiny, making them impossible to use through gloves; the menu system is anything but user friendly; the required charging base is required for charging (you can't just plug the radios directly into the adapter); the radios are a bit on the heavy and bulky side; no wrist straps.

Here are the positives: excellent sound quality and reception; adequately loud alert tones; good belt clip; plenty of channels and "privacy" codes (as others have noted, there's nothing "private" about a conversation had with a privacy code); scrambler feature for some degree of "privacy."

Please note that although the Amazon listing does not say so, the GXT900VP4 includes two headsets, so you don't have to order them separately. The included headset quality isn't the best, but they work.

The pluses outweigh the minuses, by far, but I wish Midland were more responsive to its customers' needs.

this gmrs is much better than a c.b.radio. i think everyone should get rid of their c.b. and go to the gmrs.there is no squelch and it scrambles your conversation.

This radio worked as expected and well but, try and do things the legal way and expect to pay an additional $85 for the FCC required license to use these. I looked around through all of the reviews and no where was this mentioned. I guess everyone else used them without the legal right from the FCC.

They've got the full 5W power that is so hard to find at a good price and they also have the good price to go with it. The features are great and numerous but there is one problem. When you press the talk (PTT) button you have to wait between a half second and a second before you can say anything! It drives me nuts and I had hoped Midland had fixed this when I bought these. I had tried Midlands around a year and a half ago but that drawback was too much to pull me away from my old trusty Motorolas. That and the then 16 mile Midlands couldn't compete with my 2 mile Moto's. These new Midlands are much stronger than anything I own but it drives me nuts holding a button waiting to speak! OR even worse, hand the radio to someone who is not familiar with this glich and they will cut off the beginning of their statement every single time. You have to be psychic to communicate with these at times. Even if you want to click the button to send a "roger" beep for confirmation instead of replying you have to hold the stupid button!!!! These are OK for a trip to Disneyland but if you want to use them regularly I would advise to try them first. These would get 5 stars from me otherwise but I feel being able to talk when you press the button is more important than weather alerts or vibrate features.