ExpertPower Baofeng BL-5L 3800mAh Li-ion Battery – Extended Life 7.4V Two-Way Radio Replacement for UV-5R, BF-F8HP, BF-F9 Series – Classic Black

Delivery : Speed was faster than expected and I didn’t even pay the extra for faster shipping. The packaging: it came pretty basically packaged (bubble wrap and boxed in a padded shipping yellow envelope) All in all can’t really ask for more. Correctness: The battery itself BaoFeng 3800MAh fit my BaoFeng BF-F8HP (Tri-Power) perfectly. There was no fussing with having to trim tabs or force the battery. It was exactly as expected. Performance: It works great, in fact, too great… let me explain: I’m accustomed to letting the a battery drain then recharge it at least three times prior to actual use. Just a habit of mine and I highly recommend it. If you do this, the battery will not form a memory. Anyway, it comes charged, so I installed it in the radio and left it on. Obviously it’s not constantly transmitting so it was a long wait. The only thing I could do was set the radio to FM mode and let it play constantly to drain the battery. It actually took it two days of continuous play to finally kill it. When it came time to recharge, all I did was set it overnight and I had a full charge in the morning. I repeated the process at least four times . If your radio does not have an FM mode, I don’t know if all BaoFengs have it or if it will be used in a different model, you may have a long wait to full discharge. Obviously this is great when you go to the field, since the battery actually lasts for days with the radio in VHF/UHF. On a side note:in the two months that I have had it, I have taken the radio to work and used it in FM mode in my office. The thing plays all day long and all I do is take it back home and set it in the cradle for an hour or two and it’s fully charged! This is not bad for a $15.00 piece of gear. Cosmetics: I got the black battery, it looks great and makes the Radio itself fit my nylon carrier a lot better than the smaller high capacity that came with the Radio. I still keep that one as a backup, but if you like the feel of a “full size” radio, this battery will do the trick. BTW, it does come in different colors and you might feel inclined to order a red one like my buddy did in order to be able to find it easily should you lose it in the field. Having seen his, I feel that it looks weird and just somehow makes it seem like a toy. I guess since it performs the same, it doesn’t really matter, but if looks matter to you, you may want to stick with basic black. You’ve been forewarned. Unknowns: this battery has a port on the upper side corner which I believe is used for a direct plug in car charger that you can purchase with it. I didn’t simply because I have an inverter in my car and can plug the desktop charger if I need to. You can find the Battery/Car Charger combo if you search for it on Amazon. I can't speak for longevity because I've only owned it for a couple of months, I'll update on this as time goes by. Summary: Overall this battery is a good purchase for your BaoFeng. It is long lasting, reliable, and (at least for my gear) allows your transceiver to fit into your pre-existing nylon carrier. For the money, I can’t think of another piece of gear that I would rather spend on. I’m going to buy a second one for my spare BaoFeng and always maintain my smaller high cap battery in a small waterproof container for emergency use. Hopefully this helps others choose wisely.

NOTE: I purchased this battery for the UV-5R PRO, "suspecting" that it would fit. It DOES NOT FIT the UV-5R Pro without modification. But I'm flexible, and I can't take away a star for my own stupidity. I received this battery earlier this week and immediately tried to attach it to my brand new UV-5R Pro. No-Go. Though the UV-5R Pro "looks" a lot like the UV-5R, it's more akin to the UV-5RA body style and the extended battery did NOT fit at first. So out came the X-Acto knife and the carving began. The battery case plastic is soft, so carving away layer after layer of plastic until I got the case just right was painstaking but not impossible. (DO NOT MODIFY THE PLASTIC OF THE RADIO! The tabs on the radio body are perfect as is.) By the time I finished I had removed about half the thickness of the female docking holes and most of the front "curve" that blocked the name badge of the radio from seating on the battery. VOILA! It stays on snugly and it's been on my hip ever since. There really is nothing wrong with the stock Baofeng 2000mAh battery. it's a long-life solution that comes stock with the radio. But this 3800mAh battery is AMAZING! I'm on my fourth day of monitoring, chatting, and listening to the FM broadcast side of the UV-5R Pro and I STILL haven't charged it. The battery adds 1/3rd length to the radio, but it's still short and thin enough to grip nicely in the hand. In fact, I think it grips even a little bit better because of the added length. So as long as you know that it could take some modification to get it on your radio (which will OF COURSE void your warranty and return options) you will find it to be a wonderful addition to the UV-5R series. AND I SAY AGAIN... This battery is NOT a perfect fit for ANYTHING but the UV-5R unless you modify it by carving away some of the plastic mounting surface. STEADY HAND REQUIRED. 73 DE N3LJZ

Exactly as described and what I wanted. It lasts longer than the OEM battery.

First of all, this does NOT fit on the UV-5R. The contacts on the batter touch the radio's contacts, so it will turn on, but the bottom of the UV-5R protrudes about a millimeter or two too far for the batter to lock into place. I say again, THIS DOES NOT FIT THE UV-5R!. Taking a star off for the misleading description. I purchased it for a BF-F9, which it does fit. The battery last a long time. I have my BF-F9 in an ammo can with and a Mobilinkd TNC3, and an antenna attached to the top of the can. The setup is monitoring APRS on 144.390 using APRSDroid. The setup is a sort of go-kit configuration, and all the components can last for a couple days on battery, except the Baofeng BF-F9 with the stock batter. I purchased the extended battery to get more life out of the weakest link in the kit (the radio). It works well! I've been able to run continuously for 36 hours straight, beaconing every 30 minutes at 1 watt. (Always use the minimum power necessary.) If I increased the power to a full 8 watts and exchanged messages frequently, that batter life would drop considerably. My guess is that on high power and frequent use, I'd get no more than 24 hours out of it. That is still VERY GOOD. I'll get a second batter so I can last long, and consider inexpensive charging options. I've fully depleted the battery twice now using this setup, as I would in the field, and have recharged it twice as well. To recharge takes at least 24 hours. For planning purposes, just assume you'll need 30 hours to recharge to full capacity. So in summary, it's a good battery with long operating life if you need it, and a long charging time when you're waiting for it. and it's NOT FOR THE UV-5R!

This is with regards to: Baofeng 7.4v 3800mAh Li-ion Battery for UV-5R-1 UV-5R-2 UV-5R-3 UV-5R-4 UV-5R-5 UV-5R-6 UV-5R-7 UV-5R-L BF-F8 BF-F8+ BF-F9 . The battery fit my TONFA UV-985 with minimal modification. Before I tell you what I modified, please understand that if you damage your battery beyond repair, IT'S ON YOU. DO NOT attempt to contact me for any type of legal or other recourse. It's a shame we need to add disclaimers to everything these days. Seems that what a buddy told me recently is more that a little true, ". . .can't cure stupid . . ". The modification I did: There is what looks like a DB9 on the base of the radio, I did not touch that. There is what looks to be a matching form on the mating surface of the battery. Most of it needs to go bye-bye. I started with my pocket knife and ended with a rotary tool. On either side of the battery there is also a bit of excess as well. I started and finished this with a sharp pocket knife. Take your time on the sides, you don't want to take off too much. I did the above to the first battery I received, once I determined that the battery fit my HT I ordered 3 more batteries. The following 3 batteries I mod'd the DB-9 form start to finish with a rotary tool. I attempted to trim the 2nd batteries edges on the side with the rotary tool and took off a wee too much. So, I went back to scraping with a sharp knife for the edges to either side for the 3rd and 4th battery. Once trimmed the batteries fit perfect. I looked at pricing all over, including direct from China. I place a high degree of value on purchasing from Amazon especially if Prime is available. I did purchase four of the Tonfa UV-985's from China. Price and capability were good, delivery time was long compared to a 2 day delivery from Amazon. Of course this HT was not available from Amazon. One of the four had a minor defect, not worthy of returning, but a reason not to purchase the batteries from China even if I could find a better price. Make certain that the battery you purchase has the Baofeng name attached, assuming of course that the lable is legit. Several of the competitive batteries did not say Baofeng on the label. Good Luck.

I haven't had the extended battery very long, but it does work, and the fit and finish match the Baofeng UV-5R perfectly. It looks like an OEM piece. Extending the battery life was secondary to the reason why I ordered this. While I love the idea of doubling it, my original stock battery still hasn't gone done one notch since I originally charged it (I've been listening only, I don't have a license yet.) The main reason I ordered the extended battery was to give my radio some counterbalance and a larger grip area. I've upgraded my antenna with the Nagoya NA-771 15.6", and now the radio is a little top heavy and slightly awkward to hold. The extended battery counterbalanced it, and now it feels perfect again. I also liked the idea of a larger grip. While the radio's small size is a selling point, and is nice, it's also nice to be able to hold it as if it were a normal-sized radio, especially with extended antennas. It also makes it easier to punch in frequencies while holding the radio with one hand. When I opened the box, I was surprised how small it was. I know how small the radio is, and I knew it matched the radio's dimensions perfectly, but seeing the pictures in the listing for some reason I got the impression it was larger. It doesn't make the radio feel overly heavy. In fact, from what I know the casing directly below the radio is actually empty. The battery internally is flat and extends down the back. If there were two things I wish for this battery, one would be that extra space contain an additional 2-stack of smaller cells, to increase the capacity even more, and a small rubber plug to go into the 12v DC jack on the side at the top. I see a lot of people having trouble getting this to fit in their variants. If you have a stock UV-5R, and your radio doesn't have any funky variances on its dimensions, this will fit perfectly. It slides in solidly, and clicks easily. f anything changes with use, I'll update this review.

I bought this for my UV-5RA after reading the reviews. The total time to manually modify this battery in order to fit was around 10 minutes with a pair of electrical snips. If you have a dremel tool then it should only be a 5 minute job to get it working with the radio. I can't give you an estimate on the battery life because I've NEVER had a Baofeng actually run out of battery on me. I mainly bought this battery so I would have a backup and also because it adds a nice "heft" to the radio and makes it feel more substantial (as well as better weight and balance when on the belt loop). It uses the standard wall charger and once modified fits the radio quite well. Needless to say, after more than a year of owning Baofeng I'm still impressed by the value of their radios. I use the FM Radio and LED flashlight functions ALL THE TIME and they work perfectly.

As others have stated in their reviews, this battery can be easily modified to fit the Baofeng UV-5R+. I accomplished this quickly and cleanly with a Dremel tool. Just grind away the three raised plastic sections on the front of the inside. At 3800 mAh, this battery holds a long charge for prolonged use, even when transmitting at high power. The downside is, it takes a long time to charge so make sure it's charged before you need it. The battery also extends the base of the radio, making it a more reasonable size if you have a long antenna on it. There is a small coaxial power receptacle on the side of the battery which might be for direct charging rather than using the charging station, although I have not tried this myself. The power plug that powers the charging station for the UV-5R+ does not fit the power receptacle on the battery however.