I recently came across HF, or as I like to call it, the poor man's emporium. I visited a store in person once, but make most of my orders from the store online. There is a few "lists of good tools at HF" (see harbor freight jems - http://woodworkerszone.com/wiki/index.php?title=Harbor_Freight_Gems, but I thought we could share our own personal experiences with the gear we tried.
I'll start:
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-speed-drill-press-38119.html
Scale of 1-5: 3.5
Pros: Cheap, cheap, and dare i say, cheap!
Good for most wood duty, average on plastics and metals.
Cons: It bogs down very easily if the feed rate of the drill is is not gentle and well in control when cutting harder/thicker stock.
There is a small amount of slop in the chuck assembly. It mostly effects the smaller sized drill bits. I will eventually tear it down and try to fix this slop.
Noisy! It has a slight 'rattle' to the sound. May need to be greased.
For most light duty use, it works very well. I have stress tested it with 1/2 inch steel stock and a 3/4 inch drill bit and it worked, although it took a couple of minutes to drill through. It is great with wood stock. Plastics tend to melt and seize on the drill bit, but adjusting the speed solves that issue. All in all, A good buy if you want to save some money. If I was to buy a drill press again, I would likely buy something a little more powerful. So far it has served me well.