I bought a UV5-A+. Now I am not the guy to ask about the performance compared to other HT's because I do not own another HT. I do know it has very good tx audio as I talked to a guy in town on simplex, and on the local 2 meter repeater and he said it sounded just fine. RX audio level seems fine to me.
I mainly use mine to monitor the local police frequency (have come to the conclusion that there are many many losers living in this city!)

I have ordered the hand mic and the SMA cable so I can connect it to my outdoor dual band antenna. Then I will be able to see how well it performs.

I took mine to the last ham club meeting and everyone was impressed with the radio, for $53 shipped with the program cable you can't beat that with a stick. I use CHIRP to program it.
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