Hi Sze Jie K,
Working with some real equipment is a good idea, it’s affordable and a good idea to get some experience with “real hardware”.
Take a look at this post, it probably answers any questions you have about the switches:
https://networklessons.com/cisco/cisco-ccnp-switch-lab-equipment/
If you are on a budget, just get 2x 2950 and 1x 3550. That allows you to practice 99% of the topics. The only topics you can’t practice are private VLANs (you’ll need to get a 3560 instead of the 3550) and stackwise. For stackwise you will need 2x 3750. They won’t run IOS 15.x but you don’t need it for CCNA/CCNP.
If you want real routers, take a look at the 1841 and 2811 routers. Those are affordable and very nice, I especially like the 1841 routers since they are small and don’t make a lot of noise.
Rene