Some find the Two Little Fishes Reactors just fine, and they run about $30 usually, heck I gave one away not too long ago.
The Via is about $50 buck locally, which some shy away at. Here is the thing. It has these really cool Ehiem like hose connectors, a nice postive locking top, some cool return line with filter, comes with some vinyl tubing and even its own pump.
I have two, and think they are cool as pooh
To change the media, all suck because the media is messy.
There is another canister-esque reator that was new, but havn't seen or heard much about it. Could be looking into.