First, a charcoal grill can also be used with wood. I start my smoking process with charcoal and lighter fluid then after that burns down a bit I switch to wood for flavor.

#1 Price. How expensive is this grill? How about shipping or tax or delivery charge? Is there a pickup fee if I want to have them haul off my old grill?

#2 Size. How big is the grill? What is it's capacity? For my charcoal smoker, I have a standard side-mounted firebox and then the meat section. You can add additional grates on the bottom yourself to increase capacity.

#3 Airflow and Dampeners. This will determine the overall quality of your barbecue. Make sure that the charcoal smoker offers some sort of dampener between the main fire area and the main meat area.

#4 Workmanship. Overall quality is very important. Avoid flimsy metal "made in you-know-where" charcoal smokers as they will rust out and break soon. Get stainless steel grates or else they will rust. Don't go cheap or else you just have to buy another one every couple of years.

#5 Usability. Is the charcoal smoker easy to use? Make sure that there are plenty of accessories, access points, grates, tool hooks, etc.

#6 Name brand: When it comes to quality charcoal smokers you will want to stick to the name brands. I won't go into the whys as I don't want entire countries against me so you will have to trust me on this. Two things that I can mention about this are that your customer service (and the language that it is in) and the warantee cooperation from the manufacturer should be important to you. Don't support companies who outsource.

#7 Safety. Make sure that you check out where the handles are and what they are made of. They should be mounted solidly and high enough over the fire so that you won't burn yourself when opening and closing the lid. The weakling wood handles with two screws through them come right off after about two years so make sure you get one with an insulated handle that is attached extremely well.

#8 Quality of Wheels. This may not sound important to you but it is to me since I move the charcoal smoker around quite a bit so that I can clean and mow. Do not get one with those cheap hollow plastic wheels or else your children will learn new words.

Remember that when purchased a charcoal smoker that you use common sense: get one that offer both quality construction and performance and keep in mind that it will be exposed to severe temperature variation and also the outdoor elements.