Need advise to start arduino

[snowman]

hi friends,
I need to use arduino to develop an dro. Which meand I need an arduino board and 4 lines LCD. I made same research and looked into ebay. there are many arduino and arduino compatible boards.

What I need to know is should I buy arduino, arduino uno or arduino leonardo ? Or all of them even "compatible ones" okay for me ? I don't need special functions, I'll just read some digital inputs and write them to LCD. project is basically a up-down counter. and what is the difference between arduino and "arduino compatible" boards. they all look exactly same, actually they have to as they use shields.

and opinion please? or you can suggest some specific links from ebay to buy them (if moderators don't get angry:)

[Sideshow Bob]

For only one project. I think any Arduino will do the job. And I do not think(know) you will need any sheilds. If you plan to do more Arduino work. And can afford it. Go for the fastest Arduino with the most IO pins. If on budget. Consider IO pins in preference to to speed. I am not an Arduino person my self. But I am into PICs. For the beginer it is more important with IO than speed

[TucoRamirez]

What about pinguino???  (pic32mx board that can be programmed in sketch or in XC32) ... 

https://www.olimex.com/Products/Duino/PIC32/PIC32-PINGUINO-MX220/

[Delillusions]

If you only want's to learn and use Arduino, then it doesn't really matter which one are going to choose. The only thing you have to think about is which one can you afford and how big designs are you want to  make with them. If you want's to make some big, complex systems, then one with more IOs would be better. Either way you will need some "shields". You can buy them or you can make them yourself.

Mostly the difference between the Arduino and the Clone is tham someone redesigned the PCB. Sometimes they just changing some minor things like the LDO (Voltage Regulator), or the IC, which is responsible for the serial communication. If they changeing something, then they have to call it a Clone.

If you just want's to goof around, then an Uno will suffice, and if you thinking in big, then you can use a MEGA. Don't go for the DUE, it has an ARM in it and it's a different story.

Other possible choice would be a ChipKIT or one of it's clone. They are not clones, but you can use them almost like the original Arduinos. You just have to watch for the voltage levels, since they are using 3.3V.