Starting July 2009, a 75-watt 2 meters FM transceiver by Yaesu has emerged in the market. It's an upgrade of FT-2800M that's 65 watts. It has been rated 5/5 based on five reviews on eHam.

My first ever ham rig was FT-2800M which has a great transmit and receive audio. What I don't like about these is the bottom speaker. As a result, IC-V8000 or Kenwood TM-271 are an options. Due to the V8000's well-know flaws such as PTT shim up requirement, audio drop-out, poor transmit power (don't fooled by the so called 75 watts), I just went with Kenwood TM-271.

Oh my gosh! What an LMR look & feel! What a commercial microphone! What a professional two-level power option! Like a Motorola engineer said, "Motorola is on top, Kenwood right below, followed by Vertex, and Icoms are way down." I'm dropping 440 band because of its high attenuation, have to have 2 meters as this is the main band.

73
KC2VOB

I have generally liked icom on vhf. i have ic-2100 which i though was better than the yaesu. It boils down to personal preference and ease of use.

For mobile i use the die hard Standard HT which is nearly 20yrs old; still works with homebrew power converter replacing battery pack to power of 13.8v cigarette light; with 5/8 2m antenna, it works fine and extremely sensitive front end.

Home brew 2m yagi (4el) is what i use here.