acdii

The difference between the Mentor and the Apprentice is fairly close in flight characteristics. The Mentor takes a bit more runway to get in the air, has a higher rate of maneuverability, and can fly faster, but otherwise is just as easy to fly.

 When you add it all up, the price of the Mentor without radio and RX is $299, the Apprentice is $229, so it is about $70 more.

  There are other radios out there that hold multiple models, but dont work with the BNF planes.  The choice is yours though for what radio to use.  If you want to get the mentor down the line though, it will be more expensive when you add up the motor, ESC, rx and servos.  The one nice thing about the Apprentice and Mentor is they take the same battery.

If you can afford it, get the Apprentice RTF as your first plane, then you can add the Parkzone, or see if you can find a deal on a BNF and TX.. I got my DX6i when I bought a BNF mSR for $125, and sold the DX6i that came with my Mentor for about the same.  Or find a used one, the RX for the DX6i is between $55 and $80 new depending on which one you get.  I looked at Ebay, not much out there though.

When I was looking for a 4 channel trainer, the Apprentice was the lowest cost one I could find. The fact that it used the same pack as the Mentor made it an even better value.  All the other low cost planes were 3 channel, which wasn't what I wanted, since I was used to flying 4 channel.  I gave the Nexstar a good look, but it was still an FM radio. 

There are lesser priced trainers with radios out there, but keep in mind, getting repair parts for them is difficult if not impossible at times. At least the Apprentice parts can be obtained either from the LHS or direct from HH.