sarahspins

I agree, I just bought a PE500 (Brother's "cheap" embroidery only machine) and I'm quite happy with it, and to be honest for a cheap machine I am blown away with it (I paid $219 for mine as an Amazon Lightning Deal). The stitch quality is great and it's easy to use compared to my experience with my prior Pfaff and my mom's current Pfaff. The ONLY downside, which isn't really a downside to me, is the 4x4 embroidery field since a majority of machines out there now have bigger hoops available, but my prior machine was a Pfaff 7570 and it's embroidery field was basically the same size (it was something like 4.5x4.5), and I didn't really find it that limiting before, so I don't really expect to be now, my primary purpose for getting it was to be able to stitch out custom quilt labels as well as embroider smaller embellishments for my kids, and it's more than capable of doing that for me. I do like being able to set the machine up to do it's thing while I work on something else on my sewing machine... with my 7570 I literally had to sit there with my foot on the foot control to make it stitch (or wedge the control under something) and that was torturous. I'll probably never have a combo machine again... but even if I did, since I now have 4 other sewing machines (long story) I'd still be able to find another to work on

The only downside I've really heard about the cheap machines is that they don't last, but you know what, I really don't care... expensive machines don't always last either. When the electronics go out or there are no parts available to fix what is wrong with your machine, you could still end up with an expensive paperweight (happened with my 7570 when it was only 10 years old). If my "cheap" brother only lasts a year I'm honestly okay with that and I would replace it with another. I consider a machine in it's price range semi-disposable. Labor to fix anything majorly wrong with it (once it is out of warranty) would probably cost more than replacing it.