I bought a Brother sewing machine to take to classes because it was very lightweight, and cheap to buy on eBay. Since then I have learned Wawak has Brother sewing machines at a great price. The advantage there being you can return it if you are not satisfied. They have great customer service and if you sign up for their emails you will save at least $10 and probably get free shipping. I believe their Brother machines are a better quality than found in Wal-mart because the frame does not easily twist. I checked after watching a documentary about buying cheap machines in big box stores. I twisted a machine I bought at a rummage sale and it easily bent, the Brother I bought seemed sturdy and had metal rather than plastic interior frame.
This one seems like a good one
http://www.wawak.com/products/produc...Sewing-Machine
but I found on my machine I really missed the needle returning to the correct position, in other words continuing the loop around the bobbin. The one I listed does not state if it does that. On mine I have to manually turn the hand-wheel to the correct position or I'll get snarls. I put a line on there with permanent marker to do so but I would rather have a machine that returns to the correct position.
A new sewer might hate sewing if they run into snarls all the time.