For the price you are willing to go up to you have lots of options. I used to want a Janome, I think it was because of all of the beautiful pictures of projects they used to have in magazines. I bought a Ruby Viking first, (for high end machine) and loved it, so easy to use with no problems. Then a year later I traded it in for the Diamond Deluxe and I also love it. I also have a NQ3500D Brother and its a good machine. I've read the reviews here on Janome and they are all over the place. My suggestion is that if you have dealers in your area, check them out. I'm not sure where you live but if there is an event in your area that is the best place to try and buy a machine. Like here we have another event in January..My two Vikings were used, one had 7 hours on in and the other 1min. I saved thousands of dollars on them and got a great warranty. Check to see what all is out there and what all features are available. Right now if I could afford to buy another it would be Brother Dreamweaver or the sister Babylock that scans, etc, same as Dreamweaver. Good luck, its such a big decision.