I agree with Tartan, take a hands on class where you have to load the quilt on the rack and actually manipulate the machine. Some have found they don't like it after just that brief introduction to longarming and that would be your best bet and time and money well spent.
Longarming does take a toll on the body. I am 59 and don't have near the stamina to stand at the machine like I used to, even just a few years ago. I am completely wiped out after about 4 or 5 hours at it and hurt all over so I take Aleve and sit. That said, most of my work is intense with lots of ruler work, dense fills and unforgiving precision in many of the designs I come up with. I am usually recuperated by the next day. I don't have robotics, all of my work is hand guided and my art, not a design developed by someone else. But I do pantos as well and those are designed by someone else. If all I wanted to do was pantos, I would never have gotten one, I would send my quilts out. My passion is coming up with unique designs for custom quilts and I have very specific ideas of how I want my quilts done and I have clients that love my work or can't envision how to quilt a quilt so they pay me to do it. But I have scaled way back on quilting for others.
When I first started my LA journey, I took a certification class at a quilt shop so I could rent time on their machine. This class assured me I wanted to pursue longarming. I then tried several out at shows. I researched and compared prices, made a list of must haves and can live without, compared ease of movement, visibility, customer support, ease of upgrading the machine, ease of self maintenance (and make no mistake, there is self maintenance!) There is a lot more to learn than just how to operate the machine unless you are blessed with a dealer close by who will make house calls whenever there is a technical problem and also knows what they are doing. I have read some horror stories.
Once all said and done it was over a year from first laying hands on one to actually getting one. If you are considering a computer driven setup think long and hard and research all your options, don't fall for the slick sales pitch. The good ones are very expensive and the amount of $$ you would spend on one you could send a lot of quilts out to a professional longarmer who also has CG LA to do the computer guided quilting for you.