I bought This a while ago and it's become my main solder station, beating out my $120 iron in every aspect.

The tip that it comes with is trash so get one of these for through hole.

For $20 + Tip cost and the ability to take hakko T12s, it's at least worth a shot.

Whatever you do, do not buy anything other than a cartridge type iron, they just don't compare. I do recommend you stick with something that takes T12-T15 (afaik they're the same thing) as they're pretty much industry standard at this point.