I did a lot of research for a coworker's husband who wanted to buy an embroidery machine for his wife for Christmas and I ended up recommending the PE770, which he purchased through Amazon. He had given me a dollar limit and I knew my coworker didn't want an embroidery/sewing machine combo, just an embroidery only machine.
You can find reviews of machines on this board and I would also recommend this site for reviews.
http://sewing.patternreview.com/news...i-bin/index.pl
I started out with a Brother PE150, then upgraded to a Brother 8500, then upgraded again to a Brother Innovis but I also own, and really like, the Bernina 600 and 650 embroidery machines. I don't think you can go wrong with the PE770.