You get what you pay for John. I bought one of those inexpensive stations a few years ago, mine was a combined soldering station and hot air rework station. Neither function worked all that well for the intended purpose. The soldering iron was truly unimpressive in maintaining the proper temperature.
In my case, I'm getting some utility out of it as I use the hot air rework with a fine nozzle for heatshrink, it works great for that.
If you're going to do any volume of soldering, bite the bullet and buy the Hakko, you will not be sorry!