Originally Posted by wrenchdoctor

So my wife is getting pretty excited about buying a vinyl cutter for hobby use. I will have my $.02 on the direction we go hardware wise, as she tends to defer such decisions to me because I am fairly analytical before spending and she trusts my judgement. I would like for her to be able to get some return on investment when she feels comfortable doing so, which begs the question; should i spend more on a bigger/more capable machine? I will certainly take advantage of it from the RC side, making driver names and paint masks. I suspect any machine would do that with ease though.

Right now the Cameo 3 is the front runner, but is there a better machine for under, lets say, $450-$500 that i need to be considering? Im also looking at the uscutter MH line, which seems to be a little hit or miss quality wise.

I have AI and a few other vector programs at my disposal thanks to my profession. For that have purchased an entry level machine like the Cameo, is there a better machine you wish you would have gotten?