I purchased a Brother XR37T for my granddaughter and so far it has been a good machine. I looked at some of the Brother machines at big box stores but was told by the dealer I bought from that most of the machines sold through Walmart and the like have plastic parts inside, whereas the XR37T and most likely some others have metal parts inside. I can't prove she was being truthful but took her word for it.
I didn't want just a straight stitch but wanted a mechanical, and one that had a few of the fancy stitches and of course zig-zag for finishing edges. I paid $299.00 in canada. It came with a video on how to work most of the feet and how to set the machine up which was nice. Saved a lot of reading.