I am a rank novice at this so I'm only guessing and I was in a hurry. The BF-R3 will be a backup to the BF-F8HP for me but it does have 3 bands, UHF, VHF and a 1.5 meter band between them. It even comes with two antennas... one for UHF/VHF and one for the middle band. Not that I understand the antenna scheme. It's max power is 5W compared to 8W for the BF-F8HP but sometimes it pays to have a back-up plus it might be helpful to have the third band, I guess? Oh, and another plus, it comes with the huge battery.
I, also don't know, if I tried to download a program with repeaters in the other bands if it would work or not. They both have the same first two letters, BF... instead of U* but I doubt that means much. I'm glad that it worked though.
FWIW... there's more to this story... I actually ordered the BF-R3 first... and in parallel, tried to download the programming software from the AMZN-seller (didn't know about CHIRP yet). When I tried to go the seller's URL, Google came back with a RED BOX warning that the website was dangerous so I started searching for other software and found CHIRP. In parallel with that I decided to order a BF-F8HP too, mainly since it was sold by Baoteng directly and listed on CHIRP's radios. I sorta planned to return the -R3 at some point since I did not have compatible software but now will probably keep it.
Now if CHIRP starts supporting the -R3 in the future, I'm in even better shape.... CHIRP is amazing! I can't imagine trying to stay compatible with so many radio options, frequency options, formats and technology advances.
Gary.