scientifically i do not know how the easy water thing could work.
i dont necessarily know about different brands, but whatever you get, make sure to test your water and set up the softener to match. when i moved in to my new house i just hooked mine up and ran it. after my neighbor was talking about how our water wasnt really that hard i looked into my settings. i got to dial down the usage and get by with half the salt i use to use. plus look at the salt tank. get a big one. i bought a little compact thing that holds a bag and a half, it sucks.
I bought a Kinetics about 8 months ago and I LOVE IT. But Rugnuts is spot-on -- before you even think of buying a softener and possibly a Reserve Osmosis drinking water unit, GET YOUR WATER TESTED. Alternatively, you can go to your county or wherever the water is tested - usually on a monthly basis - and get a copy of the past 3 monthly reports. They'll provide that data free.
Those water reports will give you what you need to order a water system that will tackle the issues that are inherent to your area. Whether it's hard water, cysts, sediment (as was our case), chlorine, iron, or whatever, there are various treatments and filters that will deal with those issues.
My unit is outfitted with the usual salt transference process (the salt chemically bonds with the nasties that you want to get rid of) and is flushed down your drain when the system regenerates. You want to get a system that regenerates only when it must, otherwise you're wasting a lot of water AND salt. My Kinetico unit uses about 20 lbs. of salt per month.
One word of caution, though. If you get a water softener, you'll want to consider getting an RO unit too. Otherwise, you're drinking a slight amount of salt with your treated water. As we have parrots, that really isn't a good idea, so we opted for an additional RO unit. Best-tasting water you've ever seen and you KNOW it's free of all the crap that is normal with tap water.