Black and white printing is pretty easy and no matter what the text books say, you don't need masses of equipment, industrial heaters or rubber suits - just a bit of space where you can black out the light. Although black and white printing is really cheap, getting the negatives processed can prove more expensive than colour prints. Because it goes through colour print chemistry, the prints sometimes come out with strange hues - try and ask for sepia as it can be a nice effect. You can then print off your own prints at home using the negs which print as regular black and white. Colour printing is an expensive business, and not really to be attempted at home unless you can muster up a decent darkroom space.
Transparencies give far better quality than colour prints, but cost a bomb to print.
Because it's so small, I tend to carry it around with me a lot more than I would a bulky SLR, and it's capable of some great results. I've got a couple of lens which I use regularly, mainly a 24mm wide angle lens, a 50mm f1.4 standard lens and a 28-150mm zoom.