Welcome to the Router Forums. Lots of good routers out there today. Just depends on what you want to spend. Porter cable, Milwaukee, Bosch and Dewalt all make great routers. Check out combo units that come with a motor unit that can be switched between a fixed base and a plunge base. If you go this route most put the fixed base in a router table and use the plunge for hand work. Or you can buy a dedicated plunge router for the table and for hand work. The combo's are a great idea. You can just switch the motor between the table and the plunger. Very few jobs will require more than a 2 HP router such as those that involve large router bits such as rail and stile doors and panel raising and you can get buy with panel raising with a smaller router by using multiple passes.
Most of the 2 base combo units run between 200-300.00 However... Craftsman has released a real nice 2 base unit with 2 HP, work like on the plunge base and it has received very good reviews and runs 109. I bought the 1 3/4 plunge version for 79.00 and it's an awesome value. So for 109.00 you can get off to a great start at a modest investment. Great way to find out if you really like the router and what it is all about.
Here is a link to the router page and the 2 base unit:
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/prod...UseBVCookie=Yes http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/prod...UseBVCookie=Yes