I have tried 2 other DMR Radios and this one is far better and user friendly bar none.

This was an upgrade from a pair of somewhat well-worn Baofeng UV-5R HTs, and as an upgrade, the D878UV is outstanding. Rather than simply regurgitate the specs you can find elsewhere, let me speak about what I like and don't like so far. The D878UV has the same speaker/mic plug and antenna jack as the UV-5R which means I didn't need to buy a new speaker/mic or antennas, and my sound card interface will work as well. Specifically, my 28-inch whip antenna fits and works very well. The D878UV Bluetooth pairs very well and has good range, probably 20+ feet indoors. It paired perfectly with my Sony WC-310 earbuds. I'm getting good sound quality reports through the Sony microphone. The D878UV also pairs with my car's Bluetooth system and the car treats it like a telephone. Once set up, the PTT button pairs with a single button push. All in all, this Bluetooth is so much better than the 3rd party BT adapter I previous bought to use with the UV-5R. I'm not sure if the UV-5R supported reprogramming keypad buttons and I never did. But I do like this feature on the D878UV. There are 5 programmable keys, each with a short press and long press option. E.g. I have programmed the keys to start a scan, enable "digital monitor" mode, toggle the channel display between name and frequency, etc. This is very useful. The programming cable is included which means there is one less accessory to buy. The CPS (customer programming software) is a free download. This is a good thing because you are going to need it to manage your channels, zones, scan lists, talk groups and many other settings. Attempting to make anything beyond trivial changes to the settings through the radio's menu system is an exercise in frustration. I am impressed with the run time of the 3100 mAh battery. The size and shape of the battery is also an improvement over the UV-5R extended-life battery which is thin but quite tall. This makes the radio very tippy on a desk. The D878UV battery is thicker and shorter. Along with the thicker size of the radio, the D878UV is quite stable when sitting on a desk, even with my 28-inch whip on top. The UV-5R would just fall over. The D878UV feels much more substantial and better-built than the UV-5R. It feels like a quality radio in the hand. If weight is an issue, do know that the D878UV is noticeably heavier than the UV-5R. I found the 127-channel memory of the UV-5R very limiting in my area, so the 4000 channel memory in the D878UV is really great! But you will need a lot of channels because of the way DMR repeaters and talk groups are programmed, if you want to use DMR. The UV-5R had one scan list, i.e. all the programmed channels and the scanning was slow. The D878UV has multiple named scan lists that you can configure with whatever channels you like and scanning seems at least twice as fast. I have separate scan lists for my regular morning check-in nets, scanning of favourite repeaters, scanning of all VHF channels, etc. This is very flexible and useful. There is also a zone system, which is another way of grouping related channels under a custom name. The list of zones is easily accessible from the keypad and each VFO can have a different zone in use. The zone names are always displayed on the screen. There is a dedicated knob on the top of the radio for stepping through the channels in the current zone. Unfortunately, AFAIK, zones are NOT scannable, which is too bad because if zones were scannable, scan lists would be redundant. I'm only just beginning to explore the DMR features and I have not yet set up APRS. The UV-5R did not have these features, so I am excited to use these capabilities. General quibbles: - The menu seems unnecessarily clumsy at times. - The manual is woefully incomplete. There are so many options in the menu that are not explained, e.g. what is CDT Scanning? Many keys have unexplained secondary functions that change with the context,, e.g. I discovered by accident that the Channel knob can resume a scan and/or change the direction of a scan while scanning. AFAIK, this is not documented. Ditto for the Menu, P1, * and # keys, which appear to assume other duties depending on context. It is unfortuante that the radio has so many undocumented features. - The CPS program seems like something from 1995. It works, but it has strange quirks. E.g. "Save As" just paves over a file rather than prompting "File already exists, do you want to change it?". Beware! - AFAIK, the date/time feature does not automatically adjust for DST. You must change your timezone, otherwise the time will revert by an hour automatically. - AFAIK, the date display format is fixed as dd-mm-yyyy. - I haven't found the function to display and listen to the input frequency. On the UV-5R, this was assigned to the "Scn" button and was very handy. Summary: I am very pleased with this radio and would definitely recommend it, even as a first radio. It is very good value for the money.

Pretty happy so far. Haven't used it's full potential yet. But will continue to run it through its paces over the next few weeks.