I've seen a lot of Name brands at that price range. As with buying a sewing/emb machine. I'd go to a dealer and try them out. Find out the good and bad points and see what all they offer. They are great to have, you can serge around your fabric before washing and you won't have all those threads in you dryer or a big mess. You can piece with them and you never run out of bobbin thread. Nancy Z has a book on quilting and serging, it has some really cool stuff in it. That is my next big investment; as soon as I get my Diamond Deluxe paid off, or close to it.

I got the Brother 1034D and so far am happy with it. The dealer offered a class and I learned how to rethread it which isn't as scary as it sounded. But, with what I sew, I keep neutral thread in it and very rarely have to change it. It is in the $200 range. The thing it doesn't do is overlock, like Holice said, so I can't hem anything with it. But that wasn't my desire anyway.

It really depends on what is important to you. I had two regular type sergers which I didn't use a lot and I would cuss a lot when I had to thread them. I paid a little over $1000 more to get the automatic threading feature. There are other bells and whistles which come also, but primarily it was the automatic threading that I paid for. I had to get it on a lay-away to get it. I use it everytime I sew! No cussing. It is definitely worth the money to me because without that feature I would not sew on the serger, it would just sit like the last 2 had done. Go try out the machines at the different dealers. Just as you wouldn't buy a new car without driving one, don't buy a serger on the advice of strangers.

Thank you for the input TanyaL I have a serger that I have had for year and do not use much. I really think I will check out the one that is auto thread!

I have a cheap singer serger, bought several years ago. I could never figure it out so never used it. Don't know where your located but if you want it, pay shipping and it is yours. Course this may be more expensive with price of postage.
let me know, or anyone else who is interested.

Check out www.hsn.com They have them at good prices very often.

Yes, I have been looking at them. The prices do seem reasonable. Thanks.

I live in Nevada-I'm sure the postage would be a lot. Thanks for the offer tho.

You can sign up on patternreview.com (it's free) and check out the user reviews on sewing machines and sergers there.

I ended up giving mine away because I never used it.

I agree with most of the comments - figure out what features you want and try out a lot of them. Some of the nice features include: self threading (as far as I know, only Baby Lock has this feature), easy threading but not self threading (Viking has one for about $400 in which the left side swings open so you can more easily access some of the threading channel - don't know if any other do this or not), coverstitch - usually (but maybe not always) on higher priced sergers.....and the list goes on. maybe folks here can list the features they really like and which machine has them so you can have a better list of options. Most manufactures now offer extra specialty feet for sergers - beading, extra gathering, etc.