The Bao Fengs can be a pain to program, especially for a new ham who doesn't understand the terminology used and what it really relates to.
I went through the Chinese owner's manual on the original Bao Feng UV5R , 112 pages, in Chinese, and netted it down to a couple of pages in English that make sense to most folks. Still not easy to program, but a big improvement over the 11 page in broken English owner's manual that comes with them.
I can send it to anyone who wants a copy of it. I wrote it two ways in one document, one way is just press the keys in this order and you will have a frequency set into memory.
You still have to know the frequency you want to program in, simplex or repeater, and if repeater, the offset direction and PL tone, but it's a lot simpler this way.
The second half of the document walks you through it as well, but explains each step and why your are doing it, so that you can gain something of a working understanding of the inscrutable Bao Feng mindset.
When I teach classes on ham radio, I always recommend new hams program ALL the frequencies they want to use at first, MANUALLY, then later on get the software and back them up on a lap top and going forward, add new ones either way, manually or via the CHIRPS or RTS software packages available for pretty much any modern ham radio, hand held or mobile or base station.
This is because you might find yourself needing to program in a new frequency or repeater in an emergency, out in the middle of nowhere, and you don't have a pc with the software and cable on it.
And for most radios, I can program in a repeater and be on the air far faster than you can connect the cable to the radio, to the laptop or PC, bring up the program, scroll to the next blank entry line, enter in the frequency, offset, PL tone, etc. and do a save to the radio. This is especially true of the Yaesu's , which are the easiest to program of all the major brands.
And the programming on the Yaesu's has followed the same pattern for almost 50 years, so if you learn to program one Yaesu, you just basically learned to program all of them made since about 1974.
My 48 year old FT100 programs the same as my new FTDX3000.
Kenwood makes a superb radio, HOWEVER , they change the menus and programming methods from model to model, and also within a model number when made a few months apart.
At the county we have a pair of Kenwood 710 Dual Bands, made three months apart, and the menus and programming software for each is completely different.
Alinco and Icom also make great radios, but often their owners manuals, like the Kenwood's, start out written in Japanese or Korean, then translated to English, and they are a bit clumsy in that regard.
Lastly, the Yaesu is built and serviced (if needed) over in Cypress CA, so a repair is a short distance and time away, and the Yaesus, for most Models, come with a 3 year warranty, while the other big 3 come with 90 day to 1 year warranties, and the Yaesu radios comparable to the same features on a Kenwood , Alinco or Icom are usually $100 or more cheaper.
Yaesu is owned by Vertex Standard, one of two major suppliers of radios to Uncle Sam, the other being Motorola.
The difference between a Vertex Standard Radio, that is Mil Spec, and the same model / features in the Yaesu line, is the label that says Yaesu instead of Vertex Standard, and the price, the VS will be at least 3x as much as the Yaesu in cost. But the Yaesu is still Mil Spec.
So the ease of programming, close repair facility if needed, lower price, reliability, features, etc. is why we use so many Yaesu radios in our local ARES/RACES group, and why we promote them to new hams, it just takes away a lot of the frustrations a new ham often encounters with another brand, whether it be one of the other big names, or one of the Chinese clones of the big names, like QYT, TYT, Wouxon, Bao Feng, etc.
Hardly a week goes by that I don't have a new ham that I just gave the exam to and who just got their license, call or come by frustrated that they can't program the Chinese radio, or the Kenwood or Icom or Alinco they bought.
And with the Chinese radios, I have yet to see any of the handhelds or mobile rigs last a full year of daily use, most die after 6 months or so, and good luck getting them repaired even if they are under warranty.
I own and use Kenwoods, Icoms, and Alinco's, I have dual band hand helds, 50 watt mobile rigs and 100 HF base stations from each of those, and a ton of Yaesu's in each of those categories, like them all as far as quality, etc. but I've been at this a long time, and having a Master's Degree in Electronics as well as one in Mechanical Engineering has made it easier for me to deal with all the differences and the sometimes hard to understand programming of the first 3.
For an experienced ham, any of the big 4 are fine radios, but for a beginner, my own personal feeling and experience with new hams says go with the Yaesu, learn it, learn how radio actually works, then buy whatever floats your boat for audio quality, features, reception sensitivity, digital signal processing, output power, etc.