I had bought a Singer from HSN a few years back and it sewed miserably. After talking to Singer's customer service, they determined that my machine was a lemon and for me to return it and get another one... just the thought of that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I ended up going in to town and looked at what the dealers and Walmart had. A friend of mine just bought a Brother from Walmart and is tickled pink with it. It does everything that she wants it to do and then some.
I personally sew with a Janome and embroider with a Brother. I used to embroider with a Janome but ended up getting hoop envy, got an amazing deal on a new machine with a big horking hoop (that I have yet to use - shhh don't tell hubby!) and haven't looked back.
I would look around a bit more. There are some that have had good experiences with Singer but I'm not one of them and I personally would go with a different machine. Janome sells a few machines that are in that price range - at least they used to. I'd take a spin around at your local dealerships and see what is out there. Can't shake a stick at a dealership - if anything at all is wrong, they fix it on the spot and those threaders can be a bit fidgety to say the least. Once they are in the right spot, they're fabulous but all of the machines I have had that have the threader needed a bit of tinkering ;)