If you read this post, please understand that there is some opinion contained. I will try to stay as neutral as possible... but....
It really depends on what you plan to do with it. Just Smoking, maybe some grilling? It's not like a grill that you just throw food onto and pull off 15 minutes later; it's an Art form that you will learn over years and takes hours.
What is your price range? An El Cheapo can be had for under $100, or you could look at a Jambopit for $12k-$15k.
What do you want for a Heat source? It helps to determine your Smoke source too.
Actual Wood (we say 'sticks'), Charcoal, Pucks, Pellets, or Gas?
Where will you keep it? Will you need to move it around?
I won't even begin to discuss the high-end stick-burners. It's more than you'll need or want.
The Big Green Egg is a well liked device, but it is a heavy ceramic cooker. It's great for smoking, but not it's main intent. I've heard of
many different meals being made on them. IMO: Bonus for mulitasking.
Weber, brinkman, and Charbroil (I'm sure there's more...) all make a capsule-style smoker. They are all escentially the same design, and can be found in electric for some. Some of these are mulitaskers as well.
There are 'offset' smokers, where the firebox is beside the cooking chamber. These can burn sticks or charcoal.
Bradley makes one that uses Pucks of wood. I believe that the heat is provided by electric. It will slowly feed the smoke puck across the element to smolder and burn away, and works in an upright chamber. This falls under the set-and-forget group, because once you dial-in the temp, you walk away and the machine does all the work.
Traeger makes high-endin pellet smokers. It slowly feeds the pellets from a hopper through to and element to smoke and heat the cooking chamber. Also a set-and-forget.
There are
several brands that are gas smokers, but I won't go there... sorry, but gas is for grillin - not BBQ.
= = = = = = =
I cut my teeth on a Charbroil capsule style a friend won and would never have used, and bought a Weber Bullet (just before the new style came out
) when it came time to replace it and get my own.
I've changed to using sand instead of water on
some of my cooks, but haven't done any major mods to mine. (trying to learn it all first...)
I like the water pan option, as I can opt to use apple juice for my Butts (you know the stuff I'm talking about...
). My wife is loving the BRITU style Ribs I started doing last summer, and I swear to doing my 'right-of-passage' brisket this summer.