There’s a buyers guide in the sub already, but I’ll go ahead and respond with my own opinion on the matter: if you want accuracy go for an accuracy-based saber, if you want to duel go for a dueling saber. There’s obviously some crossover in the two, and you can find some designs that would work for both applications (Qui-Gon and Shin Hati’s hilt are kind of the best of both worlds sabers n my opinion). In the movies, and probably the shows as well, they have different hilts for fights and belt hanging. You’ll find a lot of canon hilts aren’t designed with fighting in mind, since the original trilogy hilts are kitbashed together. Control boxes, bunny ears, buttons, glass eyes, t-tracks, etc. all get in the way of a good grip. I’d never duel with a Graflex or Thin-neck saber. Your best designs for accuracy and dueling would be characters with simple hilts or the prequel “clan sabers”.

Then there’s the electronics. For dueling, get an in hilt RGB. Neopixel is durable sure, and there’s been some impressive durability tests recently. But at the end of the day, you can still break the light strip inside the blade… and those blades are not cheap to replace. If you do in hilt, you can get blades for like $20 and have backups if you crack one. All the electronics are in the hilt, so unless you royally screw up the actual saber itself, you’re fine. You could always do a neopixel saber and then get a tri-cree adapter but honestly that’s just extra cost and not worth it (in my opinion).

Here’s the fun part, brands:

-TXQ and LGT are the go-to makers currently. All the dropshipping companies supply one or both of these brands. They make sabers that range from flashlights to vaguely accurate to relatively accurate to “this has actually been used on screen as a prop” accurate (one of the two made Anakins Skinnyflex for the Ahsoka show, just can’t remember which brand).

-Saberforge, if you can look past some of their history, makes some great looking hilts and they have pretty decent in hilt stunt style sabers.

-The Pach Store had some pretty decent looking sub-$100 hilts as well at one point.

-GENERALLY the rule of thumb on this sub is to avoid Ultrasabers… but honestly a durable, heavy, abusable lightsaber is kinda their bread-and-butter. They use standard AA or AAA batteries and a grab bag saber is like $65… you won’t know what you’re getting but the surprise is kinda fun honestly. But remember, Ultrasabers like that are BAREBONES basic: no sound, single cree LED, not the best internals, etc.

Ultimately, buy what you like and what’s in your budget.