Not a lie. Personal observation. When I first got the radio I tested it at our groups ham shack. I was 150' away from our repeater (open field, no obstructions) and could not get the repeater to acknowledge my signal. I could hear everybody fine, but could not TX. One of my buddies handed me a spare antenna, and presto I was able to use the repeater. I was also able to hear repeaters that were 20+km away that I couldn't tune-in on the rubber duck. Transmit and receive improved with a different antenna. I thought I had a bad radio, bad transmit button, or bad microphone before I swapped out antennas.
My statement is 100% accurate based on my observations. Grumbles from the other members in my group agreed with the sentiment. They ship with bad antennas.
Baofeng radios work just fine, and many amateurs I know have several as well. I have never tried the $20 UV-5R radios so I can’t comment on how well those work.
But I absolutely don’t buy the argument that all Baofeng are terrible radios and people must be idiots for buying them, even more so when the evidence turns out to be that you had a radio with a bad antenna once.
I stopped using mine because I don't have a spectrum analyzer and was told by Reddit that they send a lot of power out of band, which isn't something I care to do.
(I have a VHF module in my KX3 that meets my VHF needs. Mostly. Would like even better frequency stability for meteor scatter, WSPR, etc.)
I’m sorry that there’s some sort of “eternal September” in the radio community because of baofeng users, but lying won’t bring back the days when only people who could afford very expensive equipment could enjoy radios.