Baofeng UV-5R Plus vs Retevis RA89

The UV-5R Plus is the clear winner for most amateur radio operators.

The single most important differentiator is price. The UV-5R Plus costs $20 while the RA89 costs $67, a significant gap for radios with nearly identical listed specifications. Both lack DMR, APRS, and GPS. Both support CHIRP programming. Both earn 4.5 out of 5 stars from owners, though the UV-5R Plus has substantially more reviews (1818 versus 278), giving stronger confidence in that rating. The RA89 does offer IP68 weather sealing, which matters if you need guaranteed water resistance, but the UV-5R Plus has no listed IP rating rather than a poor one, meaning we simply lack that specification.

The UV-5R Plus should appeal to budget-conscious operators and anyone building a starter station or experimenting with the hobby. The RA89 makes sense only if weather sealing is a critical requirement for your use case and you value that feature enough to justify the cost premium.

For most operators, the UV-5R Plus delivers equivalent core functionality at a fraction of the price. Unless dustproof, waterproof operation is essential to your mission, spending three times as much on the RA89 is difficult to justify based on the listed data.