I also have a motorola T6320 talkabout that I absolutely love. It's a great unit. Either of those are near the top of the food chain when it comes to FRS.
However, if you plan on communicating with people in vehicles FRS is a terrible choice. You really need an antenna outside the metal box and that means CB or HAM radio. If you're stuck on FRS though you can't go wrong with the two above choices.
I use only Motorola's, because they all use the same interchangable battery. Over the years, I have gone through about a dozen different units (some get lost, some get smashed, drowned, or whatever. It's nice to be able to charge up extra batteries for longer trips.
I have found that picking the right model is a bit of hit or miss. By a significant factor, the best FRS I have ever owned or used is the
Motorola SXR700. Large form factor, easy to use, terrific sound quality, great range, amazing battery length. Far superior to all other units I have used. Hard to find! You can buy them
online here. Pretty durable also. I dropped one in a deep puddle in Moab once, then it got run over a few times while in the puddle. I was walking around looking for it, talking into a spare, and could hear it underwater! I finally found it, and still use it to this day:
I have some newer ones that are very disappointing. At all costs, avoid the
T9500XLR model. It's total crap. Well made, but sounds terrible.
The smaller units have crap PTT buttons that break or wear out, although my
T6500's are holding up pretty good. These are ones I loan out on the trail. No range issues and aren't very expensive should they fail to be returned.
As for using it for primary trail comm's, FRS are fine. In bigger groups that are more spread out, you need to have someone in the midpoint act as a radio relay, but you just can't beat the convenience of FRS. My club is pretty much standardizing on FRS for trail coms, as CB installs are so hit or miss and just don't seem all that reliable. There are a growing number of HAM users, but for every 15 trucks, we might have one or two ham's, so FRS is still mandatory.
