requirements

• 3-5 cup (unfortunately, 'cup' can vary widely, but for rice cookers, often means gō, which is ~3/4 of a U.S. cup)
  10-cup units make far too much rice for our needs, and if you get a too-large unit but cook much smaller amounts, then your rice tends to brown too much because it's all on the bottom
• non-stick teflon surface (ALL decent rice cookers have this)
• (mid-range) a keep-warm option
• (mid-range) a steaming tray for veggies
• (high-end) a timer

good options

• low-end (<$40)
  • Panasonic SR-G06FG — 3.5 cup [$28]
• mid-range ($40-80) Very very common. These have a standard interface: there's a two-position switch (up=cook, down=keep warm), and the way you turn it off is to unplug the unit.
  • Zojirushi NHS-10 — 6 cup, steam tray [$50]
• high-end ($90-130)
  • Panasonic SR-TMB10 — 5.5 cup, steam tray. Pretty cheap for a high-end model. It also gets universally good reviews. It also has WAY MORE GoogleGroups mentions than any other I've looked at. [$85]
    • it's available at Linens and Things for possibly much less!
    • this guy also is a popular reviewer, and he raves about it
    • ding ding! Mitsuwa grocery in Arlington Heights had this one on sale for $75, less than I could get it for online. Yay, we can eat on $1.65/day now!
  • Zojirushi NS-RNC10 — 5.5 cup. No steam tray, it's actually a very expensive mid-range cooker (it only has the two-way switch), however the reviews are universally positive. [$95]
  • Sanyo-ECJ-S35S — 3.5 cup, bread-baking function (!!??) [$110]
  • Zojirushi NS-KCC05 — 3 cup [$135]
• ultra high-end (>$150)
  • not a consideration

afterwards - what kind of rice

• god, people who spend a bit of money on a rice cooker apparently really care about which specific type of rice to use
• each type of rice also requires different amounts of water per unit of rice (search for "White, long grain")

afterwards - anal advice on cooking

• wikihow.com