Quoted from Damien:About to buy my first soldering iron (been borrowing a friend's) and wanted to know if you guys had any suggestions?
The most important thing is being able to get tips you like. I loved my first solder station which I bought cheap on ebay. But had to switch due to tips becoming hard to find.
I have an analog temp readout right now (Temna) which saved me a lot of money and it works great for both boards and playfield swaps. Now I think if you get into a desolder station, it is much more important to be accurate with temp so I would go digital over the Hakko 808 which I have.