
I picked the Talkpod N59 up from Ebay for about $120 sort of as a convergence of two ham radio interests. The first interest was hotspots and using the hotspot while mobile. A mobile hotspot still needs a wifi connection which, in turn, meant setting up a cellular hotspot. I was also hearing about an app called "Peanut" that I tried out on my cellphone. You need a ham radio license in order to use Peanut which works over the internet (or cellphone network) rather than the ham bands. Looking into how Peanut worked led into the world of network radio.
Network radios are generally android based devices that are either repurposed cellphones or based on cellphone technology. The network radios generally look like walkie talkies, and have a PTT button or support an external mic. Being cellphone based they all have bluetooth capability but may not always support PTT functions over a bluetooth connection.
I figured that since I was planning to buy a burner phone and one of those $15.00 per month(or lower) cell phone data plans then why not get a network radio device that can run Peanut, fit in my pocket, can go anywhere and be also used as a "ham" radio :-)
Love it when a plan comes together. So,enter the Talkpod N59.
The Talkpod N59 is a Touch Screen Android based cellphone/radio with a tiny 2.4 inch touch screen PTT button and unlocked Android 9.0 system. Android 9.0 is the main reason I picked the Talkpod as a lot of similar network radios including some selling for a few hundred dollars have really outdated and no longer supported Android 6.0 or even older versions. I used Peanut for a couple of net events primarily through Echolink but otherwise it has mostly been doing hotspot duty in the car for my actual radio connections to the TGIF network talkgroups.
Pros:
The Talkpod N59 works out of the box as expected. I'm not really using it as an Android device so have only loaded an audiobook player, a couple of audiobooks, ES File Folder and Peanut. The device itself has very clear audio and good coverage on the 4G/LTE network. The WiFi is 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth is 4.0/BLE (Low Energy). Battery life is very good about 3 days on standby and at least 8 hours or more in use.
Cons:
Only one "con" - the teeny tiny screen. Some menu fonts shrink into unreadbility there's probably an Android setting that will alleviate the problem but Im not using the screen long enough to have this become a major issue and no one would buy this device to load the kindle app and read ebooks.