Pros and cons of the Anytone at-d868uv from the perspective of a SOTA user

There are already many reviews out there for the Anytone mentioned above, so this is not meant to be a detailed review but more a list of pros and cons from my perspective since I mainly use it for SOTA activation. I am using it for two years now and am very satisfied with it in general. I do also use the DMR functions occasionally but it's not my main use case.

Its receiver, subjectively at least, is quite sensitive on FM. And the device produces around 7 Watt with the "Turbo" setting applied on 2m -which does make a difference when signals are already weak: on several occasions the other station was not able to read me with the power set to "High" (which gives around 4 Watt), but was able to understand me when I changed it to "Turbo", which gives around 7 Watt. I now per default on 2m simplex leave it on "Turbo" during SOTA activation.

Pros:

• Good battery lifetime
• Quite robust
• Accessories are cheap - I use a cable mic
• In the "Turbo" setting it produces around 7 Watt
• Display visibility is good even in sunlight
• True dual VFO - gives me the option to listen to the calling frequency while having a QSO on another frequency

Cons:

• Analogue FM squelch is too strong for my taste - even with its lowest setting ("1") it blocks signals very well readable. During SOTA I have to open up the squelch completely otherwise I might miss easily readable replies to my CQ calls.
• Firmware not completely stable in my opinion. The device freezes from time to time for  non-reproducible (at least for me) reasons. Allegedly its successor has better firmware.
• Volume control cannot be turned down to a comfortable level. When I use earphones it's too loud for me even on the lowest setting, I ended up using earphones with volume control.