I have one, and love it. Has tons of sewing features, plus it has the large hoop embroidery hoop that came with it. I have not done much embroidery on this machine, but what I've done, I've been happy with. It has a 10.5 throat, needle up and down feature, which is priceless for stopping and turning your fabric when sewing. I paid $3500 for mine - on sale. It has the thread the needle feature, but takes too long to get it right, so I just thread the needle my hand. Has lots of built in stitches, and memory features. You can down load embroidery designs from internet onto a flash drive, insert flash drive into the sewing machine. Tell your friend - good luck.