For choosing a plane of any size, which airplane is good depends on what you want to do with it... so what DO you have in mind?

This being a beginners' forum, I'm assuming that you may need something you can learn on... if that's the case you should know that smaller planes are often "flitty" (i.e. they move fast for their size and react quickly to control) and (of course) they're small. Put these two things together and you get a plane that (compared to a purpose designed trainer) is hard to see if it gets up high or out far and leaves you little time or space to correct if your control inputs aren't too precise.

Now, that being said of the small class in general, you should also know that it's way more true with some planes than it is with others.... so how do you know which is wich? Well, for a plane to be aerobatic, it must be able to quickly make a strong reaction to a control input, it must not tend to return to a "normal" straight and level attitude unless specifically commanded to do so, and it must have the ability to stay in abnormal attitudes until properly commanded to return to straight and level. So right away, if a plane is good for aerobatics, it will force the flyer to CORRECTLY provide any righting inputs any time it is in an "unusual" attitude (and since we're talking about a small plane, an unusual attitude will be harder to see). So if there's a claim of aerobatic ability, that's always a clue that the plane is likely to live up to (or down to) the flitty reputation of the small planes -- which means it's likely to be a bad trainer.

If learning to fly is the intended use, I'd recommend a Lazy Bee, a Kadetito, or other plane with a high wing setup, low wing loading, ability to go slow....