I prefer a stand alone emboidery machine and at this point have two. My first is a Bernina 650. The other I just recently purchased and it is a Brother PE780D. Both have built in designs and use the PES format. I had the Bernina for at least 20 years and purchased the Brother because it could use the same software and that particular model includes Disney designs and can use a design card or a USB stick. The Brother is probably twice as fast. Ironically the Bernina was a Brother patent. I am sure the Brother machine was less than $1000. It also can sew out a 5"x7" design where as my older Bernina can only do a 4"x4" motif. The few times I have wanted something digitized I have gone to my local Bernina dealer and had them do it for me. It saved me from purchasing a bunch of additional equipment that I would rarely if ever use. I just paid them for their time. I like the USB stick option as it allows me to download designs from sites on my computer, load them on a USB stick and sew them out on the Brother machine.