Something else to consider is the more difficult to see matter of build quality. Entry level radios have cheap gimbals and lots of plastic parts. With the mid grade radios, you usually get ball bearing gimbals and hall effect sensors instead of potentiometers. The screens are bigger with more programming abilities, you have more switches that are usually assignable for mixes and rates. So you can set up your radio with the features and feel that you want. I'll still stick with the recommendation that a 6 channel radio is plenty for a guy's first 2-3 years of RC flying, but it's also helpful for the new pilot to understand that comparing radios is much more than just the number of channels.