I understand, but don't agree, with the logic of a beginner buying a high end radio system to start with. I have yet to find someone who started with a high end radio system and didn't realize, within a year or two, that their needs weren't being met and needed to upgrade to a different system.

If you are a beginner and will be teaching yourself how to fly, you want to minimize the things that could be wrong with your plane, so that you can concentrate on overcoming the things that will be wrong with your flying. The best way to do this is to buy a quality Ready To Fly plane. You don't need to worry whether the center of gravity is correct, whether the servos are working in the correct orientation or need to be reversed, whether the control linkages are the correct length, whether the throw of the servo is correct to properly move the control surface, and on and on and..... You need to be thinking about things like how to keep the plane from stalling; about why the plane, when flying toward you, is turning left when you are trying to get it to turn right; about why that tree appeared in the middle of nowwhere and tried to eat your plane; etc.

To keep prices down, almost all RTFs come with "cheap" radio systems. Some a terrible and need to be replaced, while others are quite decent for a beginner. Admitedly, 27mhz radios can be a problem if you are flying in an area where there may be people using R/C cars or R/C toys. But if you fly early in the morning, or are in a remote location, the 27mhz radios are fine. I live in the middle of New York City and I have been flying 27mhz planes for 2 years with absolutely no problems of radio interference. The primary reason is that I fly early in the morning, when there is no one else around. On the other hand, I have seen a number of people crash their planes due to radio interference while flying in the afternoon. Most of these have been on 72mhz frequencies. One beginner wanted to eliminate the possibility of radio interference, so he bought the Spectrum Dx6 right off the bat. Half a year later he decided that he wanted to also fly glow planes, so he had to scrap his Dx6 and invest in a Dx7. Like I said before, beginners seldom know what their eventual needs will be.

Out of all the beginner planes currently available on the market, probably the two best are the EasyStar, which you are considering, and the SuperCub. I personnally prefer the SuperCub because of its looks and because it has landing gear that allows ground take-offs (I hate hand launching), touch and go's, etc.