This is a huge step up from my 30 year old Kenmore, which still works great, by the way. But after starting to hand quilt a queen size quilt I decided I didn't want to hand quilt one that large. I am so impressed with the 11" throat space of this 7700. It seems very intuitive and easy to use and the manual is very straight-forward. I'll let you know more after I play with it.