This is my absolute number one recommendation to...pretty much anyone. Lol. I bought my Hakko probably a decade ago. I don't think there is a single thing that has improved my "quality of hobby-life" more than this. I don't even know that it has to be this specific model (I am sure nowadays there are plenty of viable competitors) but I will always tell people to "overspend" on a nice soldering iron/station. I have never met anyone who put up the cash for a nice iron and said "I wish I had saved my money, I could've got by just fine on my old iron okay"