Midland GXT1000VP4 GMRS Two-Way Radios with Headsets, Black, 2 Pack

I wanted better 2-way radios for ski trips for my wife and I, and these worked great on our recent ski trip. I almost dismissed any brand besides Motorola, but I am very glad that I looked into these Midlands. I selected these since they have the highest wattage (5 watts) on consumer FRS/GMRS radios that I could find. I've tested them in the city, local ski hill, and in the mountains: In the city (not just a neighborhood...there were several tall buildings and concrete walls between us): about 1 mile of range. Fairly clear at the 1 mile range, and got better as I got closer. Beyond 1 mile, there was a lot of static. Local small ski hill: only could get about 3/4 of a mile apart at the ski hill, but we were each at the bottom of the hill, with the hill between us and dense forest. Clear as ever. Ski resort (Big Sky): farthest that we tested was when I was waiting in line at the tram for lone peak, and my wife was on the Shedhorn double chair, and it was also clear as ever. If you're not familiar with Big Sky, we were on opposite sides of Lone Peak, with the massive Lone Peak directly between us - this was valley to valley with a high mountain peak in between, and it was still extremely clear. Having 2-way radios on a ski trip is much more convenient when you're trying to find the other person as compared to cell phones. I highly recommend these! My only minor complaints are about the batteries (I have only used the included rechargeable batteries): The one time that I ran the radios nearly completely dead, the batteries were showing full battery life. Then, once the batteries were nearly dead, the indicator dropped directly to 0 bars/0 battery (even though there are a total 3 bars on the battery indicator). So it seems that it is tough to judge actual battery life remaining, because it seems to go from showing completely full directly to nearly dead, with no in between. Also, these are ni-cad batteries, and it is not a smart charger. Therefore it is best to always let the batteries nearly fully discharge, and then charge them fully. A full recharge is supposed to take 12 hours, so you have to remember to unplug them after 12 hours (setting a phone alarm or reminder is helpful). Apparently the advantage of using a ni-mh battery pack instead of lithium batteries, is that you also have the option to run standard AA batteries - which can be helpful. Other minor complaint: you have to use the charging base with the proprietary adapter plugs. It would be nice if you could charge the radios directly with a micro USB so there is one less charger to pack. To me, the slight disadvantages of the batteries and charger are far outweighed by the features and performance of the radios, and I still highly recommend them!

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.

Radios have been solid for us. These radios were purchased in 2021, and have been used for camping communications and for backing up the trailer. The radios are easy to use and have been great for the purposes intended. However, if only backing a trailer, a cheaper FRS radio would be sufficient. Our main purpose for a higher quality radio was to have communication when members of our group are out on a hike. As the grandkids have gotten older, we needed more range. So I recently obtained a GMRS license so we could use the higher power range of the radios. High power setting is 2.8 watts (wish is was a full 5 watts), versus the .5 watts of FRS radios. My recent test allowed the radios to cover approximately 3 miles through neighborhoods with heavy trees. Fairly happy with that. I expect valley to valley will not work. I give 4 stars because the radios are not repeater capable, but that might not be fair, since repeater capable is not in the description. The battery packs lasted fairly well. I did have to replace the packs this year (2024) as the charge was not holding. I would definitely recommend the radios. Now if you are a hard core, out in the woods far from camp person, you might want to spend the extra money for a repeater capable set of radios that transmit at 5 full watts and a repeater kit. This is on the wish list.

This is a review of the GXT1000VP4. I say this because I often think people are placing their review with the wrong product, or Amazon sometimes combines reviews of the same make, even though the models are different. I already returned one cheap brand that advertised VOX but then learned after receiving it, just to turn it on I was supposed to order another cable and download software to do that. And then, of course, you'd have to have both with you in order to turn it off. Also read reviews about headsets and ear buds and security type headsets and was a bit worried that this might be the case with these. Not so. Yes, the part that goes over the ear looks tiny... but it works actually quite well to hold the tiny speaker aimed right into the ear. I HATE with a passion ear buds that are supposed to stay in your ear or squeeze into your ear canal. Hate them, Hate them, Hate them. It takes a bit of working with the ear pieces to figure out how to wrap it around your ear. But learn it once and it's a piece of cake after that. (hmmmm, cake). See the pictures. These fit very securely and very comfortably in by big headed ears as well as my wife's more petite headed ears. In addition, we think the sound via both the microphone and the earpiece was certainly more crystal clear than through the handheld. As to the VOX, I did not find the "delay" bothersome at all. I bought this for my wife and I so that when we are bicycling, we can talk to each other when we might be as much as 1/2 mile apart. So we needed something hands free. It takes a little bit of training to know what it takes to turn on TX (transmitting). We learned to just start with a clearing of the throat... and don't stop talking until you are through. And don't start your reply until after you hear the little tone letting you know the transmission is done. Worked quite well for us. I can't imagine getting into trouble using the licensed channels in a rural area (sometimes wilderness), and it sounds as though the most that would ever happen is a letter of cease and desist. But for $65 I bought a 5 year license so we can use the higher power of these units. We have not tested yet the range of these. Others have. My wife was sitting in our concrete block building and I walked up the street 1/2 mile and noticed no degradation of signal. Listen, I suppose if you want the best of the best, spend 4 to 5 times as much on a Motorola. But for our use, these will do the job. I'll update if our observation changes.

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.

I went with Midland because they offer a line of mobile gmrs radios also I can talk about 3.5 miles on high power with me at the house on the back deck and my friend inside his car. Range would be farther if one party was up high and had a clear line of sight. This is comparable to any handheld radio [ham, commercial ,marine ] so dont get disappointed if you cant talk 36 miles from your living room to your wife at Walmart. The radio works well and has a nice feel to it.Appears to be of good quality.Has plenty of volume and some nice features like scan,weather channels etc. The receive seems to be pretty good I had it on scan today and it was picking people up on a distant repeater and also some local farmers during the harvest season .This just setting atop my entertainment center inside the house Battery life is typical for a handheld.You can also power it up with AA batteries if you need to So these fall kinda in the middle.You could get a chinese radio cheap [ Legal? } or move up to a ham handheld more money [can only talk to other hams] On another note looking at the most critical review nimh rechargeable batteries output 1.2 volts where standard alkalines output 1.5 volts .So the radio operates on 6 volts Thats why you only need 4 alkaline batteries. If you use only the amount of power you need you will extend the battery life. Thats normal with any handheld.Your not going to talk 36 miles unless your on top of a very tall building or mountain and your not going to talk forever on high power with the battery capacity you have. There are only 22 shared frs/gmrs channels not 50.The extra channels above 22 are existing channels with a pre programmed privacy code.Which is nice .Not really extra channels tho Folks get led astray .Its possible for hams to talk to the international space station on 5 watts so when they say 36 mile range it is not a false statement but it is not typical. 50 channels well sort of.Midland has done the work for you.Want to use a privacy code go to one of the channels above 22.Already done for you. With realistic expectations whats not to like Read the directions and take a look online at the frs/gmrs channel guide because each service has different power limits except channels 8 to 14 which are only low power 1/2 watt only. Go online and there are several radio line of sight calculators you can use to estimate your radio range I hate to see a bad reviews from folks on something when really its more lack of knowledge and operator error not the products fault Update 6 months later my radios are still going strong.I have had no problems.The 700 mAh battery packs have worked ok .But they are only 700mAh.Typical for AAA batteries.Going to a AA alkaline could get over 2000 mAh and last longer but not rechargable. AA lithium ion rechargeable batteries 1.5 volt are available but they are expensive. Your going to need some spare batteries and packs thats just the nature of handheld battery powered radios whether frs/gmrs ,Ham,Marine ,business or whatever.

Purchased as a gift for kids ski trip. They LOVED them. They work great when cell service is spotty.

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.

Work perfectly

Supero mis espectativas, se escucha muy bien, los uso en distancias cortas, no mas de 1/2 kilometro, en ciudad y con edificios de por medio y no tiene ningun problema, por el precio es muy recomendable. El paquete esta muy completo, sobretodo poderlo cargar en el coche, aunque la bateria le dura bastante tiempo.

Escelente equipo, se nota la calidad que te ofrece la marca, el único inconveniente es que las baterías recargables de fábrica no son de un mayor tiempo de uso.

La distancia no es como lo indican, pero en vialidad de carretera a 3 km entre carros me funcionó bien. En cuanto a zonas con edificios como naves industriales con muros o en hoteles no supera los 200 metros. Pero para el precio y sus bondades vale la pena. En la selva con cerros y flora abundante llegó a los 2 km y se perdía la señal

Los mejores en cuanto a su calidad, accesorios, accesibilidad y uso, fáciles de usar, excelentes accesorios,y lo más importante le dura considerablemente la batería. Llegó antes de lo programado, en perfecto estado y probablemente ordene otro en diferente color. Saludos.