RE: Changelly Review

I played around a bit with pricing on a 100 SBD conversion (within a 15 minute window or so):

What I found is that just using blocktrades, I would get approximately 554 BTS for 100 SBD.
I asked for a quote on changelly on converting 100 SBD to ETH, and it offered around 0.413179. If I hit the BID on bitshares for OPEN.ETH, that will get me around 567 BTS. If I try breaking the spread (at midpoint) and get filled, I could bring that up to 578 BTS.
If I convert SBD to STEEM on the internal STEEMIT market, then sell OPEN.STEEM for BTS, I would get 571 BTS. If I break the spread and get filled, I cold bring that up to around 574 BTS.

So, depending on how you play it, for small amounts (especially for newbies), option 1's probably the easiest. For larger amounts, it seems option 3 is more ideal, and will still save you at least a few bucks for your trouble.

If you're looking to by ETH to go to coinbase or gemini or some other exchange for eventual fiat or something, changelly's probably the best way to go for that!

Regarding an overview of bitshares, check out this recent post by @eirik. It's pretty thorough, and also includes a video overview of OpenLedger: STEEMGIG - A COMPLETE GUIDE ON HOW TO USE WHALESHARES!