First and foremost, homeowners need to understand the difference between an ordinary grill and a grill smoker.
Charcoal, gas and electric grills would generate enough heat to cook the meat placed on top of them.
While smoker grills do the same thing, they are also designed to create a lot of smoke to permeate the meat to have that rich smoky flavor. Ordinary grills do not usually generate too much smoke and focus on the heat for cooking.
The size of a grill smoker would depend on the needs of a homeowner. If they do a lot of entertaining, it would be smarter to invest on something bigger to accommodate batches of smoked items on their menu.
A grill smoker can be vertical, horizontal or a combination of the two but most people would find the horizontal smoker grill simpler to use.
People oftentimes think of saving space and go for the portable ones but it would not make sense if it meant having to spend a longer time in front of the grill to be able to serve enough for the guests.
Using a grill smoker would be a lot different from the classic barbecue because of the aromatic wood used for it. It is a means for indirect cooking that would also allow the meat to cook in its own juices.
Indirect heat is a better means to cook an item especially the thicker ones to avoid having the burnt outer layer. For instance, when a whole chicken is grilled, the skin might end up getting burnt if the heat is turned up.
Sometimes, it is very complicated to manage cooking all the way to the core especially in the case of using direct heat cooking.