I have a Brother PC6500. 5x7 field. I love the Brother embroidery machines for the ease of use and beautiful embroidery. Brother has been making commercial embroidery machines for years - they know their stuff.
If you want stand alone embroidery look at the Brother 770 or the Janome 350 series. Both are great machines with a lot of positive reviews from real life users. Go to Pattern Review dot com and look up embroidery machine reviews.