Avoid brass or chrome plated if you have soft water.

We moved into a new house with a fancy kitchen and loved the spray integrated into the faucet. However, we couldn't install our faucet mounted Britta due to the design. If filtered water is now or will be important to you, consider that, or even maybe install an inline filter.

(We ended up just going without, and every spring we get a little extra chlorine taste for a few weeks).

Go for one with a lever, rather than twisty handles so you can turn it on with your elbow, not your chickeny hands!

Also, one with a built-in pull-out sprayer is nice. This also frees up a faucet hole that you can use for an under counter water filter, soap dispenser, or something else.

When I replaced our faucet last year, I found one that has a very smooth surface with no unnecessary nooks and crannies (the exact opposite of the one in the photo.) It doesn't exactly match the kitchen decor but my husband is a messy cook and I hated scrubbing accumulated food bits and hard water stains out of the various joints of the previous faucet.

I also added foot-pedal valves so he would keep his chickeny hands off the faucet handle.

A pull-down multifunction sprayhead is a must have. Be sure that the button on the sprayhead arent too cheapo. As said before, a single lever with an undermount soap dispenser

I redo my kitchen last year and i found a really great deal on faucet on ebay

I agree with the one lever suggestion. It's so much easier to get the right temperature and to turn off the water while you're washing dishes.

One more for the lever....one lever is way more practical. There is that new one from delta that has a touch sensor, so when you have messy hands, you're not going to get the handle dirty as well.

My dad is a master plumber and he WILL NOT install Price Pfister. They are junk, very hard to get replacement parts and are often faulty. They look nice, but are not built well.
Moen, groe, delta and Kohler is what he likes.

We went with one (kohler?) that has a single handle, spray/flow button, pull down spray head and with a high arc (so you can get large stuff under it) and love it. can't think of any other features I'd add.

This is going to sound funny, but you need to know how many holes you have to work with. An integrated-lever faucet will use one hole whereas a separated-lever faucet (like the photo above) will use two; separate sprayer needs its own; and if you want twisting handles, that's another 2.

If you have an overmount sink (lip sits above the counter) and intend to keep it, try to determine how many holes it has. Generally, there are 1, 3 or 5 holes. If you decide to use fewer holes than there are existing, you will need to choose a model of faucet with a wider base that covers the extra ones.

Yup, number of holes and the spread between 'em.

Which sounds dirty. But is not.

Single handle. My goodness - who wants to be mixing their water temperatures when you have stuff on the stove. hehe

ill also throw in the lever and integrated spray.

My favorite thing about my integrated spray faucet is you can use a "regular" faucet instead of the "spray" but still pull it away from the sink, which is nice for filling a pot or something when your sink is full of dirty dishes, the "spray" splatters too much!

One thing i dont know if anyone has mentioned is the HEIGHT of the faucet, if you have big pots and pans make sure its tall enough to fit your biggest pot under. Ive had rental kitchens where you could not fit a standard sized stock pot under the faucet! Although if you go for the spray nozzle its not too big of a deal, buts always nice to have the option for it to fit under.

Ceramic valves was the tidbit of advice I received when I was shopping for a faucet.

I agree with those who mentioned to buy quality stuff. These are among the most frequently used items in the kitchen and any frustration gets multiplied by the number of times you use it each day. Might want to visit a commercial supply for some more choices.

Thankfully we have an undermounted sink, I decided to go with the kohler one that the spray comes out of the tap, so hopefully that will work for us!

Thanks for all the input!

I would recommend the Faucet Experts at eFaucets.com. They are the largest online dealer of faucets with like 250,000 faucets. I think they will have all the Kitchen Faucets you can dream of and amazing prices. Their Kitchen Faucets Buying Guide is also pretty good. I just read a good article on CNNmoney.com about them called Remodeling Your Home? Get Online. It talks about how they are the massive niche alternative to Home Depot and Lowes. The big box stores and showrooms dont even come close to the selection at eFaucets.