I'm going to be buying a slim next week, and being a little short on cash, I was wondering if the 3rd party controllers (if you mention one that would be great) worked as well as the official Sony ones. Thanks

from experience , no
they only last about 1/3 as long and aren't reliable - some things like headsets and cables are OK as third party but the one thing that can ruin every game is a poorly performing controller so I always recommend Sony controllers only for a ps3
they're worth the extra cost