Michele,
Since your objective is to maximize quality/price, you need to define quality.
I have used similar Honeywell pressure transducers and have had good performance. You do need to be careful about the absolute maximum limits. The SCX01 devices have a maximum differential proof pressure of 20 psid and common mode pressure of 50 psig. If either of these is exceeded even for microseconds you may have a damaged or destroyed transducer. Dropping it on a hard floor can also destroy the device. Been there, done that.
Next, the specifications indicate the accuracy is 1% and the resolution, hystereis, and temperature effects are on the order of 0.1% of full scale. This gives an indication of how to define "quality." 0.1% is one part in 1000 or about 10-bit resolution. A device with 8-bit resolution will not meet your quality requirement.
What is the required resolution in volts? 0.1% of 20 mV = 20 uV. The least expensive DAQ device from NI is the USB-6008. Its most sensitive range is +/-1 V and it has 12-bit resolution (differential mode). The resolution of the USB-6008 is thus: 1V/4096 = 244 uV. Using this device would not even allow you to get the full accuaracy of the sensor and is more than an order of magnitude less sensitive than needed to reach the resolution limit. In addition the USB-6008 has a system noise of 0.5 mV which is much larger than the signals you want to measure.
You could buy a much more expensive DAQ device, but even then you need to be quite careful in evaluating sensitivity, resolution, and noise.
My recommendation is to get an instrumentaiton amplifier or even build one from three op amps. Set it up with a gain of 100. Then your full scale signal is 2 V and the resolution required becomes 2 mV. That will work nicely with the USB-6008 or almost any other DAQ device you might choose. The amplifier can be quite inexpensive (especially if you build it yourself) and can be adjusted to the gain and bandwidth which are appropriate for your application.
Lynn
