If you are looking for good quality, smaller format at a decent entry price I would recommend that you consider an Epson SCP-600 printer, use Adobe Lightroom for your monochrome conversions and tinting and make sure you are using a good quality display that is properly calibrated and profiled. The paper you use makes a huge difference to outcomes. Here again, quality is important for quality results, unless it is pure trial and error. The better papers for prints you may wish to keep would be one of the baryta base offerings from Ilford, Canson, Hahn, etc. The most important thing as a beginner is to READ and learn first. The Camera to Print tutorial from this website is excellent. Then for learning the artistic techniques of using Lightroom Jeff Schewe's new book The Digital Negative Second Edition is in my humble opinion second to none.