1. Feel free to ask me pretty much anything if you need something.
2. I consider hydro MUCH easier for newbies than soil. The only issue is the cost.
With hydro you can just follow the chart and get GREAT results on your first run. But you would need all the gear to monitor everything.
With soil its more of a guess work.
You need a good soil mix to work with and then correct deficiencies and other problems.
However, you can get a nice harvest with a much lower investment. You don't even really need a pH meter while with hydro you need a pH meter, EC meter, water temp meter, all those nutrients, building a setup and all those aren't that cheap.
I work with 2 cabins right now - one with organic soil and one with coco fiber as the medium (and one soil plant too).
The coco needs much more constant watering (and way harder to overwater), the coco nutrients cost more as I use way more of them, the coco produce a bigger harvest.
With coco you can get by with just a digital pH meter as far as meters go.
It doesn't grow as fast as DWC, ebb and flow or aeroponics but its faster than the average soil grow.
You can use it pretty much like soil - handwatering and using pots and all that.
For a begginer that doesn't want to spend too much money but still want something close to hydro I think coco is the way to go.
Have I mentioned its REALLY hard to overwater coco?
Pretty much imposible with handwatering if you got a job and go to sleep.
Thats one MAJOR newbie problem out of the equation.
As far as fertilizers go the EASIEST is Kool Bloom by GHE. You just mix it per Lucas Formula, pH it and water with it.
Its ain't expensive either.