Need help choosing entry level 3d printer for Miniatures and hobbies.

[curious aardvark]

the 'you get what you pay for' is right, up to a point.

The current crop of small (they basically all use smart phone screens - so that's the size of the build plate) resin machines currently on the market all seem to be pretty reasonable.
Don't know anything about the creality one - but given the plethora of oter choices, personally I'd go for another manufacturer as a matter of course.
Could be wrong on this one - but their track record just isn't good enough for me to recommond any of their machines without knowing anything about it.

The photon is a decent looking machine. Lots of good reviews and videos.

As far as printing large models in resin - well for one thing you can't :-) The cheap printers have small build volumes.
For another you make the model hollow or mostly hollow with a sparse internal mesh.
So 3d printed models tend to use a surprisingly small amount of plastic compared to injection moulding.

Plus resin was down to around $50 a litre last time I looked - mind you that was before lockdown - so probably gone up since then.

Have a look at some videos on using resin printers. While the results can be exceptional, the actual resin is messy and smelly and the post processing involves rinsing in isopropyl alcohol and exposing to a uv light to finish solidifying the print.

You will need ppe :-) Mask and gloves, good idea and make sure you use good table cover, you don't want that stuff getting on anything you want to keep.
watch some of thomas's videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrglNNw5A8Q
he and angus from makers muse are two of the straightest and most knowlegeable guys on youtube.

Actually there are soime really interesting comments and information in the comments for that video of thomas's that are really worth reading.
I will defintiely not be getting a resin machine any time soon ! Had no idea just how nasty that stuff is.

Obviously, I won't recommond anyone, anywhere, ever buy an ender 3 :-)

But I have seem some fdm modesl with results really close to resin prints.
So with some tinkering and a decent machine, with a 0.2mm nozzle it's doable.

The monoprice mini delta is often used for making pretty good models - but it does have a few inherent problems (I know, I have one) so I wouldn't recommend that for a beginner.

At the very least you want a machine with a direct drive extruder (and that alone rules out creality). The tiny amounts of plastic involved with using a 0.2mm nozzle (or smaller) just don't work that well with the inherent slack you get in any bowden tube extruder setup.
Plus the significantly higher backpressure needs handling differently.

Cheap machine to look at: monoprice maker select plus - it's actually a rebadged wanhao i3 plus.
Basically it's as close as you can get to a genuine prusa mk2 for about half the price.

Goo design and would be capable of both high quality prints with smaller nozzle sizes ad larger prints with the standard 0.4mm or larger nozzles.