I bought my first embroidery machine about 4yrs ago. It is a Singer CE250. I have had several Singer machines and this is a reasonably priced embroidery machine so was very interested. I did some homework and found they kind of got a bad review. I joined a group on Yahoo groups for machine embroidery and learned that most of the complaints on the machine are user error. So I bought the Singer 250. I learned very quickly how to use it successfully and have soooo enjoyed this machine and it cost me $799. Since I have bought the singer Quartet that came out recently on HSN. It has a larger hoop than my 250 does and the main reason for my purchase. The largest hoop on the 250 is a 5 x 7 which did me fine for many years. I still find I don't embroider much bigger than that but i still have that option with the quartet. I love the Quartet as well although it is not available yet. Sometime this year it is supposed to be sold at singer dealers. HSN introduced it selling a limited 2600 machines, I think saying it would be available sometime this year. In general I am saying that if you don't want to spend a whole lot of money the Singer embroidery machines are a good buy but you do have to hook it up to a computer. I think that is why it is much cheaper. I already had a laptop so that was no big deal for me. I can recommend a machine that is very similar to the Quartet that is newly released, H|CLASS™ 600E by HUSQVARNA VIKING. It is basically the same as my Quartet but may have a few more bells and whistles and I believe sells for around $1,000. to $1,400. Not real sure on that. I really like the Quartet alot and the HClass600 are made by the same company that owns Singer, Pfaff and Viking/Husqvarna. Hope this helps. I also want to say that when starting to machine embroider that no matter ehat machine you buy your success will largely depend on learning a little about M.E. and the correct threads to use and stabilizers, etc. I saw a woman trying to use regular thread in the bobbin of a Singer Emb. Mach. and it did not embroider right so she blamed it on the machine. You use a thread called bobbin fill not regular thread. Just one example of how the Singer got a bad report. If you have any questions give me a holler......hope this helps. :)