I have a Designer 1 and a SE, I personally wish that I had never purchased the SE, I had it to the shop more times that I can remember, it recently "ate" a bobbin case due to a major thread jam - this has happen several times. It also has lost the ability to use a USB stick, although I can still use the cable to transfer designs from my laptop to the machine, dealer said that there are no replacement parts available so I can use the USB stick again. Of course I don't know if they just want me to update or if that is true. Fortunately, I have a Brother 10 needle machine that I use for most all of my embroidery these days, but I hate that I cannot take classes where you need to bring your embroidery machine which isn't any fun! I could take my Designer 1, but it used a disk and it would necessitate taking my laptop, a disk drive and doing the transfer of the design to that format before that class begins. The machine is a great "sewing" machine, but I wouldn't ever use it to do embroidery unless it was a small design, and wasn't on anything that I was giving as a gift.