I have/had a Brother SE 400 that I used for a few years. I hadn't had a machine for years, and then bought that one on Amazon. It's a combo sewing/embroidery but the embroidery only goes as high as 4" work space. The throat, or harp area is small. So I convinced DH to buy me a Brother Dreamweaver XE, pricey, but it has a huge throat area, and embroidery goes up to about 12"x9". This machine is amazing!!! It's very smooth, very easy to use. Mine is new, since May but from a Dreamweaver forum on Yahoo several people have had it for a couple of years and have never had maintenance issues.