Me I prefer the automatic because you have to tweak with it less than manual. My brother has AHA and i hardly ever touch the tension button with different fabrics. I can adjust it if I need to but I hardly need to which is nice to not have to keep a log of my settings like I did with my mechanical. I personally would not be without the AHA feature after having it and think its worth the money. My machine you can turn the AHA feature under the settings(I never do) and you can adjust tension on the front screen so it is super easy to adjust on my machine