I noticed that no one has mentioned software for the embroidery part of the embroidering process. I purchased the first embroidery machine that Bernina sold a long time ago. It uses little memory cards. In the last couple of years I purchased a Brother PE780D embroidery machine because it uses both the little memory cards and a USB stick. I have literally thousands of dollars tied up in embroidery software on CDs that I would not be able to access without the USB access. Years ago I purchased a Magic box for that purpose but on my newer desktop computer there is no where to plug in the Magic Box to transfer the designs to the USB stick. I also prefer the separate embroidery and sewing machines as I can get a lot of embroidery done while I am sewing. I was lucky that the Bernina embroidery machine I purchased was created with a Brother patent. That is why the two machines use the same operating system, PES.