Janome Horizon

Has anyone purchased or test run the new Janome Horizon? If so, what do you think? I had my eye on the Janome 6600 and now they released this. I am curious before I drive an hour to test it, if it is worth the extra $$$. Thanks for your help.

Barbara

I just bought the 6600P this November for $1100.  It's a great machine, but I, too am very, very curious to see what I'm missing so I've spent the morning going over the features of the Horizon. http://www.janomespecials.com/newmc/hor-featuremap.html

I'm a sewer, not a quilter.  While most of the new features are nice, they're not essential to the kind of sewing I do.
The extra lighting would be nice, and they've improved the needle threader (which needed it) but I don't ever use a free arm and use maybe 10 of the 163 stitches on the 6600P, so the 250 stitches on the Horizon wouldn't be used either.
Neither would I use the extra memory banks, etc. 

If you're a quilter, these and the other new features may be helpful.

Barbara,

There is a great Yahoo group that has lots of posts that explore the features of the Horizon and compare it to the 6600P.  The group is Janome 6500.  It is actually a group for the 6500 and 6600.  Lately most of the discussion has been about the Horizon.  There is also a new sister group Janome 7700.  I am hoping to purchase a 6600 and have gotten lots of helpful information about the features of the machine.  It would probably be helpful to you.

Diane