I highly recommend the basic Brother machine that I got at Walmart. I used one of them for several years, before I got my Featherweight. Then passed it on to a friend who did not have a machine. Then I bought my daughter one last Christmas.
I will say that for a plastic machine they are well worth the price. For $100 or less you can get a good basic machine that will do what you need for basic sewing. And if it breaks after however many years, you've still gotten your money's worth.
All that having been said, I still prefer my Featherweight for piecing. No machine that is set up to do zigzag will ever make as nice a straight stitch as a straight stitch only machine.