Hytera MD65X DMR Mobile Radio - Review

Last week I received my new Hytera MD650 from my helpful Chinese supplier. I am very impressed with the radio indeed. It is:

• Well-built with a nice solid feel
• Easy to use
• Small

The radio came pre-programmed with the latest European version of the firmware; from the version 7 series and I was also supplied with the correct version of CPS. You may have noticed that I have the MD650 - this is the Chinese, Zone 0 version. This is nothing to worry about, however. The supplier had pre-programmed the radio with the Zone 5 (Europe) firmware and provided the appropriate CPS to go with it. The hardware for all versions is the same. Buying the Chinese version direct from China was far cheaper than buying here in the UK. Programming the radio with CPS was simple enough and will be no great challenge for anyone used to programming radios. I bought the PC-47 programming cable with the radio. Having pre-installed the driver and CPS software in a Windows Virtual Machine on my laptop (I use Linux) before receiving the radio, it worked first time. I am very impressed with the simple, solid-feeling speaker-mic, which has the LCD display and all of the buttons required to operate the radio on it. Operation is intuitive and the transmit and receive audio is great, as confirmed by on-air comments. Dare I say it, but in subjective tests, it seems to consistently outperform many Motorola radios for audio quality. The AGC seems to work well too. I have asked the supplier to get me a Roaming Licence, as this is separately licensed for Hytera radios, which he has promised to do. All-in-all, I'm very satisfied, especially for the price - a little over 200 UKP; around 300 USD. Shipping by DHL was reasonably priced and reliable. I would definitely recommend the radio. I bought it from here.^† Please note, I'm not affiliated with this seller but based on my experience with their service, I would thoroughly recommend them.