For people that regularly eat rice, buying a decent rice cooker is really a no-brainer. Cooking rice in a pan is possible and you can obtain good results if you're careful and turn the heat down at the right moment before the rice starts to stick to the bottom of the pan and burn, it's easy to miss though. A rice cooker makes this process so much easier though: Put in the rice, the adequate amount of water, press a button, wait, eat (usually) perfectly cooked rice.
I started with a German brand a few years ago but finally mustered up the courage to buy a good Japanese one (Zojirushi seems to be the market leader these days). I imagine that it tastes a bit better now but honestly even most of the cheap rice cookers produce quite good results. Recently Xiaomi introduced a series of rice cookers which have really nice induction heating and a really heavy, solid cooking pan, unfortunately they have littered them with "smart" functionality, so it's nothing that I want in my kitchen.
I started with a German brand a few years ago but finally mustered up the courage to buy a good Japanese one (Zojirushi seems to be the market leader these days). I imagine that it tastes a bit better now but honestly even most of the cheap rice cookers produce quite good results. Recently Xiaomi introduced a series of rice cookers which have really nice induction heating and a really heavy, solid cooking pan, unfortunately they have littered them with "smart" functionality, so it's nothing that I want in my kitchen.