Bottle generators are cheaper and they're OK if you don't use lights much but they're footery to set up, especially on small radius wheels, they make a noise, if not set up properly they can wear the side of the tyre, they slip in the rain and hitting a bump in the road can make them come on by themselves.
My main motivation for going with hub generators was that I was getting through two or three bottles a year. Even high quality B&M bottles just seem to have plain bearings on the shaft. After a few months the rain, grit and salt caused them to seize up. Before seizing up completely they would get stiff and this exacerbated the wet weather slippage.
My SON is connected to an Edelux which turns itself on in low light. Its definition of low light is fairly generous so it turns on during the day when I go under wide bridges and once it decides to turn on it stays that way for a wee while so that oncoming car headlights don't cause it to turn off at night. I can only tell its on by reflections of the front light on cars or turning round to look at the tail light.
According to Peter White cycles, "When the light is turned off, the drag from the hub is roughly equivalent to climbing one foot every for mile you ride. With the light turned on, it's about the same as climbing five feet every mile.".
http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/schmidt.asp
The SON even has a wee bellows inside to account for barometric changes which might cause ingress of water.
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