Motorola T8500 Talkabout 2-Way Radios with Rechargeable Pack, NOAA Weather Alerts and Vibrate

We had some older motorolas, now discontinued, that after a few years of abuse on the farm needed replacement. We ordered a bunch of these T8500's and they really suck. The voice quality is bad, hard to understand people, and the belt clips are cheap, cheap, cheap.

This product is absolutely terrible. We originally bought a pair of these from Target to use for hunting. After charging up the batteries, we tried to use them from about 40 feet apart and could barely make each other out. The sound quality is terrible and the transmission quality in general is poor and unreliable. Do not buy these.

very usefull when in a trip with friends. If there are 2 cars you can comunicate very nice and very easy.
the battery is good, since you don`t need to charge it up very offen.
Worth the money.

After reading all the reviews here, I went ahead and bought the Talkabout anyway. That just goes to show that you can't always rely on someones elses opinion. What do you wnat these 2 ways to do for you? if you take them on a boat, you're out of luck...water and the like of reception for any non marine 2 way is the same.

If you want a good 2 way for family, emergencies shopping, camping etc...this is a good set for the money. READ THE INSTRUCTION and set the channel to 15 or above to get your very high reception. You can't set it to the 0-14 and you get stricthy FRS 0.5 watts.

I set mine to channer 15 and hi on the set....it is good up to 2 mile in just about any situation for me. VOX is a joke however and it you wanted voice activated conservation, you will spend $100+.

Both radios must be set exactly to the same channel and hi or lo to get the best reception. One great positive that I always get in a 2-way is the ability to use both ni-cads and regular AA batteries when needed.
I have used this set in our cars out of site and around the corner and picked up perfect. Metal structures will cut the reception if your are in a shielded building.

I gave if only four stars instead of five because it is constructed of all plastic, but durable for me, and the instruction are, well foreign at best. One of the features that you wnat to stay away from is sets that have NO volume feature. this one has the top knob that you can turnon and then turn loader on turn it down, fast and easy.

Recommended for adults that are savy about electronics and the read instructions.

I am very disappointed...the reception is so poor that I can barely make out what is being said on the other end at any distance. We have tried every channel and nothing comes out understandable. I would stay clear of this brand!