Motorola T42 Walkie-Talkie - Review & Range Test
The Motorola T42 is a walkie talkie usually sold in a pack of three. It’s a basic option aimed at kids and families. It offers none of the features of a regular walkie-talkie or a professional PMR radio and yet, despite the unbelievable low price tag (for Motorola) it retains the build quality and performance of radio four times the price or more.
In this video, I’m unboxing the Motorola T42 walkie-talkies, walking you around the product, testing the range using my usual 300m local urban ‘real-life’ range test (rather than unrealistic line of sight tests) and giving you my review and thoughts on the product.
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Motorola T42 Review
The performance and build quality of this walkie-talkie is superb. The range test in this video shows clearly that this radio is on par with a professional XT420 in terms of both range and audio quality. All that is missing is the features you would expect on most walkie talkies such as CTCSS / DCS encoding or a scrambling feature.
It’s better for me if you watch the video but, if you’d prefer to see a neat list of pros and cons, I can appreciate that and that’s what I’ve got for you here.
Pros
Excellent build quality. Motorola have clearly used parts here from their much more expensive consumer radios.
Fantastic performance. Range and audio quality are inline with the professional range of Motorola PMR446 radios.
Superb value. It’s incredible that these are just over £12 per unit (at time of writing) with the Motorola name and the first class performance.
Support for 16 PMR446 channels
Really clean, colourful and refreshing design for radios
They do stand up on their own…just
Cons
Features are super basic. These radios do the bare minimum.
No CTCSS or DCS support
Powered by AAA batteries
Batteries have to be removed manually to charge
No outputs for earpiece or any kind of accessories
Conclusion
Functionality wise, the Motorola T42 is as basic as it gets but what it does, it does extremely well. If you can tolerate removing the batteries to recharge, these radios are an absolute winner. This is why I have them down as my top walkie-talkie for families & kids. They're small, lightweight and even a little bit fun...if that's possible for a PMR446 radio.