So, what’s the difference between the Janome 500e and the 550e? Here’s what you need to know.
A few more designs
The 550E has about 20 more built-in embroidery designs.
Dual Voltage
The 550E is dual voltage. This could be a useful feature if you live somewhere it’s hard to find compatible machines, but likely not important for most of our readers.
Extended Embroidery Formats
The 550E can also use extended embroidery formats like JEF+ and JPX. These files store more information than standard JEF files, and can be created using Janome’s embroidery software.
If you digitize your own designs, this could be useful. However, if you mostly use designs you’ve purchased or downloaded for free on the internet, you’re unlikely to make use of this feature.
Embroidery Area
Of course, the biggest difference between the Janome 500E vs the 550E is embroidery area. The Janome 500E has an 8″ x 11″ embroidery area and the Janome 550E has an 8″ x 14″ embroidery area.
However, those extra inches are costly, and while it’s annoyingly hard to compare prices on the 550E, because dealers make you visit the store and ask them about it, you can expect to pay at least an additional $1,000 for this machine.
So, which machine should you get? For our money, the Janome 550E does not offer enough benefits to justify its higher price tag.
An 8″ x 11″ embroidery area is already plenty big enough for most custom embroidery projects, and the other features aren’t valuable enough to pay that much money for them.
Let’s get crafting!
