Extreme

New quandary.   I've been cruising/surfing to make a choice on which Kenwood to buy.  Most info is from here, some from used-radios.com
 
Kenwood TK880 
Kenwood TK863G
 
The 880 seems to have most mentions.   Prices seem to be within $10 or so.  What are the differences please?  The more I learn, the more I don't know...
but I'm thinking 25W should be plenty of oomph for mobile (non-repeater) use in the mountains.
 
Thanks again folks.

Did the deal get done?
 
Looked at M1225, 20Ch at $135 and Kenwood TK-863G, 256Ch at $95 on usedradios.com.  They seemed to think the Motorola was more than I need.
Use will be mobile to HT, little if any repeater use.
Is one much "better" than the other?
 
I've pretty much put Midland out of the picture.

You are mixing apples and oranges. A 32” UHF antenna is almost certainly a high gain antenna and requires a ground plane. A 15” UHF spike would more likely be a half wave, no ground plane antenna with low gain, probably 2.4 db or so. A quarter wave, unity gain spike at GMRS freqs is about 6” and requires a ground plane of about 6” in all directions. You easily find an NMO base adapter with trimmable radials.
 
Personally, I’d put my first effort into the very low profile quarter wave option due to best survival of tree branches.
 
Hint: read the full description and specs for each antenna to avoid inappropriate comparisons.

I just received mine and have had it a couple of days. Have compared it to the BTech GMRS-v1. This radio blows it away. RF performance is amazing and I can hit all of my local repeaters from inside my house. One of them almost 30 miles away. The circuitry is way superior to the radio on a chip unit. Wish the buttons were rubber instead of hard plastic. Screen viewing angle isn’t that great either. But the little cosmetic flaws aside it’s RF performance justifies the cost completely.

I have a couple of 862G Kenwoods, and they are great.  I assume the 863 is about the same, but 256 channels instead of just 8 like mine have.