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Let's cut to the most convincing argument: Probably 99% of the world's greatest restaurants grill with gas. This is not just a matter of convenience or price. With the prices that steakhouses charge, they can afford any fuel they want. Why is this? Charcoal makes a tiny bit more smoke than gas, although, when lit properly, good charcoal produces little smoke and it is not likely to penetrate deeply into food that is cooked quickly such as hot dogs, burgers, or steaks. Of course there are at least two different kinds of charcoal. Briquets, which are made from charcoal and a lot fillers and chemicals, and lump, which is pretty much just hardwood charcoal. For more info about charcoal, read my article The Zen of Charcoal.
The smoke you see when grilling comes mostly from drippings from the food hitting the hot surfaces below not from the fuel. Meat drippings are mostly water, fat, and protein plus whatever you have added, such as marinade or sugar in barbecue sauce. When drippings hit the heat source they vaporize and some of that condenses on the meat and some penetrates into the meat. Most gas grills cover the flame jets with metal plates, lava rock, or ceramic rocks that absorb the heat and radiate it. Drippings hit these radiant surfaces where they are vaporized, making smoke and steam, just like charcoal. Some new gas grills have "infrared" burners which are superheated surfaces that are very close to the meat and more vapors get back to the meat with these burners. There is also a minor difference in the flavor imparted by combustion gasses, the volatile by-products given off by the burning of the charcoal or the gas. When propane combusts it makes more steam than charcoal, and that may help keep meat moist giving gas an advantage for some meats. Some cooks think the steam can be a disadvantage for some meats, hampering chicken skin from getting crisp for example.
If you use your grill for long low and slow smoke roasting, there is a more noticeable difference in flavor. The combustion gases from charcoal when mixed with smoke from wood chips or chunks makes a distinctive flavor typical of traditional southern barbecue. On a propane grill, the flavor is a bit more bacon-like. Which is better? Taste is a matter of taste. But when it comes to direct heat grilling, the fact is that, if all things are equal such as cooking temp, most folks can't tell the difference in the taste between charcoal and gas grilled food. If you use strong flavored rubs, marinades, and sauces, you will never notice taste differences. You may think you can, but blind tastings have shown that you probably can't. So if there is little taste difference, the choice comes down to functionality. That's why I own both. Charcoal pros and consWhy we love charcoal grills. The real reason to buy a charcoal grill is that charcoal can get hotter than standard gas grills, and heat is what you need to get steaks and lamb crisp on the outside and red or pink on the inside. Charcoal grills typically cook up to 500°F. If you use a lot of coals or if the coals are raised close to the cooking surface, they can cook as hot as 700°F. When I get my hands on top quality lamb or beef, I use bricks to raise the charcoal grate on my Weber Kettle to within 1" of the meat and the result looks and tastes as good as anything you can get at Morton's (see the picture at the top of this page). I also use the Hovergrill that came with my Smokenator to raise the coals. It's a wire grate with legs that can sit on the charcoal grate placing the coals within 1" of the meat. My favorite charcoal grills have a crank that let you raise and lower the charcoal bed. I have also purchased GrillGrates, a set of aircraft aluminum grates with an aluminum plate beneath the grates that get really hot, even out hot spots, and vaporize the drippings just below the meat. The down side. Charcoal is dirty to handle; it can be hard to light; it takes about 15 minutes longer to get up to temp; there can be flare-ups that can burn the food and flareups may be a health risk; it is hard to tell what temp you are cooking at; the temperature cannot be turned down rapidly; during long cooks it slowly loses heat and you need to add more charcoal; charcoal grills rarely have rotisseries; and there is a lot of ash to clean up after. Most of these problems are easily surmounted if you know how: If you use gloves, shovels, or tongs, you need never handle raw coals. If you keep the charcoal dry and use a chimney, getting hot coals is easy. If you push the coals to one side of the grill and set up a 2-zone cooking environment, fatty meats like chicken skin do not drip on the coals and flare up, and even if there are flareups, a squirt gun can contain them. And cleanup of ash is easier with some of the one-touch grills or grills that have removable ash trays. The most important part of any cooking, indoor or out, is regulating heat. To do that you need a reliable oven thermometer, and a little know how that takes time to acquire. Alas I have never seen a charcoal grill with a really good thermometer, and the thermometer is never mounted where it is needed, near the meat. The temp in the top of the dome can be very different at meat level. Since charcoal grills do not have temperature dials to raise or lower temp, it is important to learn how to set up a 2-zone fire which helps you regulate heat by moving meat from the hot to the medium zone, and learn how to control the energy of the fire by closing off the oxygen intake vents. They are your temperature dials. In short, cooking with charcoal can yield superlative results if you practice. The high heat is perfect for red meats, and if you learn your instrument, it will reward you handsomely. It is not intuitive and brainless, but there is little it cannot do when you achieve mastery, Grasshopper. Charcoal devotees claim it is the flavor, but for me, a lot of it is the ritual and the thrill of playing with fire. Gas pros and cons
Why we love gas grills. They are easy to start, they heat up within 10 to 15 minutes, they hold temperatures steadily yet we can crank them up and cool them down in a hurry, they can be configured for indirect and multi-zone cooking, and they are easy to clean. If it's Tuesday and you need dinner ready in an hour, the gasser can do it. Low to mid-price gas grills typically have a top end of 100 to 450°F. More expensive grills can get up to 700°F. Temp control. Although they excel at holding a steady temp, they are not perfect. A dial setting of 1 may equal 275°F on a 70°F day, but it can be 225°F on a cool, windy, or rainy day. Or 300°F on a hot day. But once you get to know your instrument, it is pretty easy to manage and if it has two or more burners it is easy to have two or more heat zones. On a three burner grill you might use a hot zone for meat, a medium zone for veggies, and a low zone for holding finished foods. It is still necessary to know what temperature you are cooking at, and the thermometers on most gas grills are not precise, so I strongly recommend you buy a good digital oven thermometer and a good digital meat thermometer. Click here for my Buying Guide to Thermometers. Most gas grills use metal plates, lava rocks, and ceramics to radiate heat, so there are no open flames, no flareups, and cleanup is easier because drips are usually vaporized. There's little or no ash, so gassers are easier to clean, but they suffer from carbon and grease buildups that need to be scraped or pressure washed every few months. There are also gas jets and venturis that can clog up. Spiders seem to like it down in there, and I have even had to dig a wasp's nest out of one of the tubes once. Some people discard the lava rocks or ceramics every year. Others think that the buildup of grease in the porous materials produces desirable flavors. My brother-in-law makes the world's finest swordfish on a crappy old gas grill with lava rocks he has been using since they were harvested in the last ice age. Some of his lava rocks have begun to disintegrate and there are gaps where bare flame slips through to lick the meat. I have never been able to come close to his swordfish on all my fancy toys. Accessories. Gas grills can come with a wider range of accessories. Most are set up so you can easily attach a rotisserie accessory and many come with side burners so you can keep sauces warm or cook side dishes. You can get night lights, side tables, spice racks, storage drawers, side burners, and there's probably even one with a DVD player. Infrared and sear burners. The biggest problem with gas grills is that only the top end models get hot enough to get a steak crunchy on the exterior without overcooking the interior. If you like your steaks well done, gas grills are perfect for you. But if you like your meat crunchy on the outside and rare to medium rare on the inside, the temp at which it is most tender and juicy, then most gas grills just don't get the job done. The italicized word is "most". Many of the more expensive gas grills now come with "infrared" burners off to one side. This is a bit of a misnomer because all grills cook by infrared, or heat, radiation. Infrared burners use a gas flame to superheat a ceramic or metal plate that radiates much more heat than standard burners. As much as twice the heat. In the 700°F plus range. That's the kind of temp that steakhouses cook at. It can give you those deep dark crusty steaks with red or pink interiors. Alas, most infrared burners are only big enough for one or two steaks at a time. Weber has its own technology for high heat searing. They call them sear burners, and they lie in a corner just below the grates. Char-Broil's new Quantum line has a radiation plate beneath the entire surface. My Quantum hits 680°F about an inch above the grates. GrillGrates can be added to most any gas grill and can significantly improve the cooking characteristics. Infrared/sear burners may be perfect for steaks, but they are much too hot for direct heat cooking of most fish and veggies. Even with steaks, you need to keep an eye on food over direct infrared. They can incinerate in a hurry. Infrared burners can sometimes be used for rotisserie cooking and can even be used for indirect heat cooking. Smoking. Some high end gas grills also have smoke boxes for wood chips, but for most gas grills you need to make foil packets or put pans of wood down under the cooking grate near the flame. Even though it is not recommended, I often throw aromatic woods right down near the burners on my Weber gas grill. Alas, most gas grill lids do not seal well, so a lot of the smoke is lost and more wood is needed than on a tighter grill. Price. Because the mechanisms are more complex, gas grills tend to be more expensive than comparable charcoal grills, assembly of new gas grills is more complex that charcoal grills, and there are more parts to break and be replaced. Two types of gas. With gas grills you have your choice of liquid propane or natural gas. Liquid propane (LP) gas comes in 20 pound steel tanks. If you have an LP grill you should always have a full backup tank on hand. Nothing is more annoying than setting a chicken on the grill, cranking up the lawn mower, and returning in 30 minutes to discover that the tank ran out and the bird is raw. Propane gas is ideal for grills because, when pressurized, it compresses and turns to liquid, making it easy to store in tanks. It also contains more cooking energy than natural gas as measured in British Thermal Units (BTU). A BTU is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water 1F. There are about 2,500 BTU in one cubic foot of propane and only about 1,000 BTU in one cubic foot of natural gas. Gas grills typically range from 15,000 to 60,000 BTU per hour. Manufacturers tout the number of BTU their grills can produce, but the number can be very misleading. The number of BTU is not indicative of the heat it can generate. That must be calculated by BTU per square inch, something they never tell you. Higher BTU grills usually have more cooking surface over which the BTU are spread. Small grills can have as little as 5,000 BTU and large ones up to 60,000. Higher BTU grills use more fuel if you use all burners. 55-75 BTU/square inch is the typical range. Sideburners typically run 10,000-15,000 BTU. Natural gas is mostly methane. It must be delivered to the grill by a pipeline from your house so a certified contractor will be needed to do the installation and the grill must be parked in a permanent location. Propane grills cannot be hooked up to natural gas without an adapter kit and the regulator may need to be adjusted. Natural gas is cheaper than LP gas and you never have to worry about running out, unless you don't pay your gas bills. Which to buy?
If you're willing to put in a bit more time to gain mastery of your tool, then go charcoal, and look for one that let's you raise and lower the coal. Or you could buy the Char-Griller Duo (right), which does both. It's a cheaply made grill, but I'll bet we see better duos in the future. Either way, before you make a purchase, read my article on How to Buy a Grill or Brazier. I'm waiting for the sixto. Charcoal, wood, pellets, gas, infrared, and microwave! With a side burner! This page revised 10/7/2009
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Charcoal vs. Gas Grill Throwdown. Let's settle this once and for all.
Wood. Ther's no reason why you can't cook with the original fuel: Wood. Other than the fact that the flavor is very strong, and you have to use the right woods or the food will be inedible. There are several cowboy grills designed to hold your food a safe distance above wood or wood embers, good for your backyard a campfire in the wilderness.
Wood Pellets. There are several nice grills that burn wood pellets made by compressing sawdust. They are great for smoke roasting, and they can get hot enough for direct heat grilling, they are not good direct heat grilling tools. At high temps there is not too much smoke flavor, but it is hard to escape the smokiness if you want to, and some things you just don't want smokey. Click here for more on 
Electricity. There is a new breed of electric grills that are ideal for apartments with small balconies. Some models can get quite hot. There is a lot of grease to clean, but many of them are non-stick coated and some of the parts can go into the dish washer.
There is one other flavor difference of note. If you use self-igniting charcoal or charcoal fluid to start a charcoal fire, there can be an unpleasant petrochemical smell during ignition and it can get into the food. Yuk. For this reason you should use a charcoal chimney or an electric charcoal starter. 
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Charcoal purists are vehement and border on snobbery. They who would never ever never own a gas grill.
Gas grills outsell charcoal grills and it is easy to understand why. 
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