Originally Posted by retired2pa
I would think it depends on how much you want (or can) spend on a machine. This is a great web for sewing machine reviews. They are written by the machines owners, not a magazine or anything.
http://sewing.patternreview.com/
Also something to consider. How much embroidery do you think you'll actually do? The reason I'm asking is, I have an embroidery/sewing machine combo. I've had it for 7 years and I love it, BUT I've found that changing it back and forth from embroidery mode to sewing machine mode can be a pain, so I've bought another sewing machine and leave my embroidery unit on my combo machine all the time. I very seldom actually just sew with it. What I'm saying is...it's a lot of money to buy the combo and only use part of it. You might want to consider 2 machines instead of one, big expensive machine. Just MHO :)
Let me just say in defense of the combo machines. My Vikings are very easy to switch out the embroidery unit to regular sewing mode. I am lucky that I do have several machines that I use for different purposes, but it is not because of difficulty of use. I like to sew a couple things at a time; so I can embroider on the Diamond while sewing another component on the SE or the Topaz. You really have to think what is best for your uses.