I agree zig heirlooms are my favorites, but hybrids have come a long way in. My biggest reason fro going for certain hybrids are their consistency and productivity, but the flavor of heirlooms are hard to beat. Hybrids really thrive in climate specific regions for which they were bred and if you are limited in space and can only do a few plants, they are the best option IMO. I do 25-30 plants a year so I can afford to experiment. I make a lot of salsa and sauces so I tend to focus on varieties that fill that purpose, Amish Paste, Roma's for sauce, Early Girls, Jubilee's and types like those for salsa, Burpee's and Cherokee's for slicers.
'Koast, if you don't have a green thumb or a are a novice, heirlooms can be more challenging because you must plant from seed, but even at that tomatoes are easy from seed. There are excellent nurseries in Orange County to buy hardened hybrid plants just coming into flower, and even good starts for heirlooms like Brandywines. Tomatoes are a huge crop in California and so expertise and good starters are everywhere, I agree with Zig, those little upside down gimmicks are an absolute joke, depending on the tomato you are growing, some must be side-dressed and you can't do that with one of those things plus it is counter intuitive to think you can water a plant when the water drains AWAY from the root system rather than toward it, tomatoes are thirsty plants but they don't drink through leaves. That other one with the legs seems a little too complicated for no reason. My suggestion is to get yourself a good fairly wide 3-5 gallon planter bucket, put a tray under it to catch water, put your plant in a good nitrogen rich soil, although tomatoes tolerate average to below average soil, there is obviously less need to side dress or amend/fertilize if you start off with good soil, the key is to water evenly and don't let them dry out. Because you are doing containers, determinate's ( bush type that only grow so big and stop) are best because they are compact, produce earlier, and some need little if any staking, Try both types though so you get a long season out of them, put the indeterminate's (larger, vine types that MUST be staked and produce later in the season) in the larger containers and I prefer a cage over straight stakes or a trellis and the larger container will handle a round cage better.
You can go to a good nursery and see if they have any empty 3-5 gallon plastic nursery planters laying around from transplants or plants that died, usually they give them away because they are cheap but they might ask for a couple bucks for them, either way, they're wider and have drain holes to prevent root rot, tomatoes don't have huge root system so root binding isn't an issues in containers that size.
Definitely try some heirlooms, they are closer to what Native Americans grew and are very traditional, some varieties are over a hundred years old. Tomatoes are always linked to the Italians but they are native to the America's and were not introduced to Europe until Columbus invasion set in motion the importation on maize and tomatoes in the 1500's. Don't forget to try some Tomatillo's, So Cal is the perfect climate for them, just harden them to the sun prior to full exposure.
