I could be wrong here but I think it's two completely different price points. My opinion is always health first. A dust collection system of any kind is better for your lungs. If you don't have a shop vac look around for estate sales and garage sales. And you can get a 5 gallon bucket and a dust cyclone from harbor freight for a pretty low price. A drum sander is kind of a niche item. A big one costs bucks. If you are on a limited budget maybe think of going with a portable belt sander in the beginning.

My 2 cents. At the moment I would go with the sawstop. The issue I see with the Harvey is it's not available until mid 2027. I don't like having a touch screen. Especially where it's placed. And in my 6+ decades of living and 50 years of woodworking I've spilled all kinds of things on my table saws. I've had all kinds of stuff on my hands. And the more digital it is the higher the chance of something not working.

@Victor Mena I don't know about others but I believe it is a possibility because Sawstop has high prices and I believe it is partially due to no competition. I guess depends on how well you like to gamble.

Welcome back. Happy sawdust making.

I'm sure you are going to get a lot of folks pushing whatever they use but when I started in 1974 we didn't have fancy tools to do joinery. We used dowels but we only had those pointed caps that you place in the dowel hole. It worked fine. One thing I find common is how people seem to think that dowels have to be in the center of the edges and that's not true. You can place them off center you just have to keep track of which side of the boards are the faces or good side. The right to left is what is important to keep lined up. Practice on junk scrapes and you'll get the hang of it. My preference would be the dowelmax out of the choices you provided. Mostly because it doesn't need separate power and can be used anywhere. And it's much more difficult to break. Any power tool is more vulnerable to breakage then a manual one.

@Victor Mena I'm currently working on a little box for my wife to put things in when she goes to bed. I had some wood left over and I asked her if there was anything she would like. She said "an open box about this big by this big and about 3 inches deep". So I started on it today. Gotta keep her happy 😁.

I've been using shop equipment since 1974 and there are as many tips as there is water in the ocean. Safety first. Second is you have to enjoy it otherwise it'll feel like a job instead of a hobby. If I had to give just one piece of advice that would be "if it feels dodgy or is making you feel uncomfortable then stop and rethink the process". That little voice in your head is usually wise advice.