First find someone local that sells and fixes them, if you buy the best laser in the world, it means nothing if you don't have local support to keep it going or can get it fixed. Most brands out there are good today, just depends on how much you want to spend and how much your going to use it and for what, or what your wanting to do with it in a few years, to say spend the extra dollars for an upgrade now, can mean a lot of dollars upfront, everyone's idea of cheap and expensive might mean different things.
I've had a few lasers over the years, single slope, dual slope, with remotes without, heavy hard to handle, lightweight and easy to use and everything in between, with machine controls and without, depending on what I was doing and using at the time.
Ask locally what everyone there has and is using and who sells and maintains them locally, there has to be someone, and ask them questions and get a sales pitch of what they think you need to buy, what models, configuration, options and etc, then ask us if we've had any experience with those models and what we've found wrong with them or how they work or the pro's and cons of each model, might be a better way to go about hunting a laser and asking questions. Right today, I'd recommend any laser I've ever owned, they were all good, and ranged from 1500-9000 dollars each. Now dealers, thats a whole different story, I've had some pretty good and bad dealers over the years, none are in your area at all. As for used, I'd never buy a used receiver, but I've bought used lasers and had good luck, I also had good dealer support and got honest answers about them too, but I do prefer to buy new whenever I can on anything laser related, so I have a warranty which on my newest laser is 5 years now.
Me personally I'd never buy a laser off the internet, even new, because I'd not have dealer support when I needed it, for me, when I've got problems or want it checked over, I get a free loaner while mine is in the shop if its in season and I need one, to me thats the thing I'm wanting, no downtime or waiting and he's a half hour drive from me, so if I'm tiling and need the laser, I'm down maybe an hour and back running again, or finish grading a building and my laser quits, an hour later I'm back to work and my old one can be back in a day, week or month, I don't care, to me that's service and why I buy the brands I do, not because of the company or what contractors say, its because its the brand my dealer sells and fixes and offers product support for. This has only ever happened twice in all the years of owning lasers but was worth its weight in gold to me when it happened, since all my other lasers were being use by my crews as well, and I'd have had expensive delays without a laser.
