I recently purchased a 9000, have not had any problems. The manual is very good and you can download if you do not get one. While I am a quilter first and foremost I did not want to spend lots of money for an embroidery machine if I was not going to use it. True you must use memory cards however they are readily available on Ebay and are quite reasonable. The machine mother board is not replaceable so that is the risk you take for the cheaper purchase price. So far I am not sorry. As far as sewing it has everything I need. You will find there are lots of 9000 machines out there still sewing.