I would recommend you that you get some more training under your belt and become more familiar with the dive shop,supplied equipment used for your training first, this will give you a beginning point of reference to begin and there will be things you don't like about some of the gear in class. This board is a huge repository of information. You can use the search feature on the board, and/or use google which will pull up old posts relating to the topic in question. We have members which are brand new to diving all the way to members who have been diving since the 1950's, along with instructors, scientists, and industry. Don't get in a big hurry, take your time, do some research, take your training, you have a lot of new things to learn and you need to focus on the instruction, which is more important than the gear. If you rush out and buy gear just taking recommendations you will wind up with a lot of gear you will eventually want to replace since you have no point of reference now, but will soon. Most divers will tell you to buy what they happen to like or prefer. The dive shop is going to tell you the brands they sell are the best. You can also by lightly used gear for less money, but you have to be careful on used/older gear, as a lot of manufacturers have been bought out or closed down. I have a 25 year old Dacor regulator new in the box. Dacor is out of business, but all you would know is it is "brand new in the box" and looks like a great deal! As I said earlier, slow down, you have plenty of time to learn about equipment. You can make costly mistakes and have to use something you don't like until you can afford to replace it. It is better to wait until you finish training before making major equipment purchases. Find a local dive club, they will be a great source of information independent of the dive shop.
