I absolutely love mine and would highly recommend getting it. My first Janome $250 model didnt have one and I spent a lot of time cutting manually ( think short seams and hundreds of them cut twice—once ysing the cutter, then again snipping all loose threads). My top 3 must-haves when I upgraded were auto-threadcutter, 11” throat, and needle up down. I miss the thread cutter whenever I use a machine without one.