So I did lots of research before I bought mine. I still wish I would have held out for the best one, but alas I found a steal and grabbed it. The problem with the Traegers are that since they have been outsourced to China for their steel, its much thinner and they are selling on their reputation (think Ghurka, and Kimber, and Bad Dragon) staking that people will still pay for less of a warranty and an inferior product.
My requirements were as follows:
Insulated for heat retention....less fuel means longer cooks cost less money.
Big Hopper...wanted to make sure it held at least a full bag of pellets (mine holds 60lbs of pellets) so I could do overnight cooks without refueling.
Multiple Temp sensors....I wanted to have one that I could cook multiple types and amounts of meat at the same time....this I missed on...I don't trust their temp probes, and ended up just using my Igrill2.
Warranty....wanted at least a 3 year warranty because I smoke at least 3x a week from March to November. Im hard on a grill.
I ended up with the Copperhead 7 from Pit Boss. It had a smoke only feature (130-45Deg with mountains of rolling smoke) that let me put like a ham or something in there overnight and pull out a ready to eat masterpiece that will have you kicking my door down to try. It also works for smoking trout without drying them out. Its temp is too high for cold smoking cheeses, but I have a tube for that. It has temp ranges from 150-400 deg so you can also use it to grill some chicken etc. in a hurry without firing up the grill.
It wasn't my first choice, but it was under a grand ($600 bucks? I paid 550) and it hit all my buttons.
Green Mountains are also excellent grills.
The best I found in my research is the REC TEC 1000. it costs a grand, but its a bad mofo.
