I have had way too many smokers of all types. I started with a Big Chief, about as simple a smoker you can get, but limited in volume. Moved to many iterations of homemade smokers, then a freezer smoker with a single burner and a outside fire tube for cold smoking. Then on to many different Charcol/wood smokers.
I currently have two Bradley Smokers. These I can pretty much set and forget by using a remote thermometer that I can monitor from my iPhone. I also use a Brinkman tall kettle BBQ grill/smoker for the times I want to smoke/cook up a salmon just for dinner. This is my wife's favorite way to cook salmon
My Grandfather had a Smoke house the size of a single car garage, fed by a fire pit about twenty feet away through a 3 in pipe. That smoke house had 100s of pounds of meat in it at any time of the year.
If you are just starting out, the one thing I would advise is keep a log recording the following:
Brine type (if used)
Rub used
Wood type
How long on smoke
Notes - if you liked it
There are infinite ways to smoke something, keeping good notes will help you remember what you like and not make the same mistakes over and over.
It would make sense to start with a "real" wood/charcoal smoker so you can learn all aspects of the process, but then again you can jump straight into high end programmable and read tons of information of recipes already developed.
Smokers are pretty easy to build, but I will warn you, it gets in your blood and you will always want a bigger, better, smoker. If you search the posts there have been some pretty amazing builds done with great details. And there are a couple members who smoke as a business @White Pirate and others who have provided tons of information over the years.
Bottom line, it does not really matter what type of smoker you have, they all can produce a decent product once you learn how to use them correctly.
Experiment and record what you did, and enjoy!
Don't forget to post what you are smoking, and pics are mandatory, LOL!