The 7550s are good mahines they are workhorses if the shop is giving a one year warranty on the work that says a lot. Ours does not do that. For a good basic machine from this series $500 is not a high price. It has over 150 decoratve stitches at least built in Nd the embroidery cards are available on ebay. I have two of these machines for my shop and use them everyday for quilting and repairs. While the throat is not huge you can still do some quilting on it. Hope this helps.