Thunder 380 is very user-friendly.
As you say you've read the positive reviews, I'll confine myself to the few negatives:
1. The manual safety lever can bite you severely if you rack the slide with the safety ON. This is because the safety points downward past the slide (indeed, that is why the left grip panel has that relief cut out near the top). Persons with large hands or a loose grip need to be careful, or rack with the safety off..
2. Beginners can experience difficulty racking the slide and manipulating the manual safety. These are break-in issues and are resolved over a week of dry racking and switching, or two live trips to the range. As a simple blowback design, the recoil spring is quite stout, so there.
3. The 9-round mag sometimes offered with the piece can and will bite during a rapid reload. The polymer bottom holder extends rearwards to where it can pinch the heel of the palm against the magwell lip. If you have the 7-round mags, then you're gold. If you have the 9-rounders, either practice not getting bitten, or consider lopping off the rearward polymer extension (it is mostly superfluous, anyway).
Compare the 7-round and 9-round mags:
4. The steel trigger's overtravel stud nicks into the aluminium alloy frame with each trigger pull. This is a strictly-aesthetic issue, though. Easy to protect the frame with an adhesive pad.
5. The DA trigger pull tends to impart a mild left-then-right wiggle to the muzzle (this is common to a lot of other pistols). Weakhand support and proper trigger-fingering (avoid over or under-engaging the trigger) can prevent this. Besides, only the first pull is DA (and only if you don't cock the hammer yourself), all subsequent trigger pulls off the current mag are SA, and those SA pulls are pure sugar.
6. Beginners more accustomed to locking-breech designs can find that the Thunder 380 shoots low --but this is because of anticipating recoil (muzzle-flip, actually), which is much less pronounced than on a locking breech: the Thunder 380 has a low bore-axis. The recoil is snappish, all right, and it can trick the user into expecting significant upward muzzle flip ---but it ain't there, and so the hands can overcompensate, pushing the muzzle down excessively. Bent elbows and practice can alleviate it. A rested Thunder 380 is extremely accurate.
7. The steel slide is a soft-ish investment casting, and there's a lot of MIM around (trigger, slide catch, etc.) although the only MIM part I have a problem with is the manual safety lever. All other MIM parts are nice and beefy thick to compensate, but the safety lever is slender and subject to breakage when severely mishandled. Overall durability-wise.. I've noted a rental with 4-5,000 through it and still runs smoothly. Stephen Camp's piece has under 3,000 through it and "it has yet to malfunction".
8. There is scant option for accessorizing this puppy.
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
I've had to carve my own grips and try to DIY my own targetting laser (for dry drills only).
9. Some people don't like .380 ACP.
Heres another of those reviews you've indicated
An Absolute Beginner's Range Report: the Bersa Thunder 380
I have a website devoted to the Thunder 380, if you're interested.
Link is below
hth,
horge
***edittid fo speeling errosr, and i added gripe #9