Brother PE900 Review

The Brother PE900 is our pick for this year’s “Best in Class” embroidery machine.

If you looking for a state-of-the-art embroidery machine with great quality—and value for your money, along with some extra features, then you should consider the Brother PE900. It’s an easy to use model that delivers top quality results in a variety of styles.

Brother is a well-known, popular brand. The PE900 is one of Brother’s finest achievements. This model comes with advanced features making it very accurate, precise, and reliable. When you buy this model, you know it will be good for all kinds of sewing.

This is an embroidery only machine and it’s really good for both professionals and beginners and, while it is priced accordingly, it operates and functions more like a professional machine.

Note for beginners:  It's important to know that embroidery only should be read to mean easier to work with.  This is because most combination embroidery / sewing machines are more complex and you need to make more configurations and adjustments to use it for embroidery.

Brother PE900 Review

We’ve found that Brother PE900 is more specialized and affordable than other models reviewed.

The embroidery machines features many excellent characteristics that make the entire embroidery process easier, this machine is pretty easy to setup and is the overall usability is simple. This is a great choice for both professionals and for beginners.

This is an updated version of the Brother PE800 embroidery machine.

The previous model also received a lot of positive reviews from our users. Should you decide to go with the PE800 instead, please know that there are a lot of characteristics of both machines that, of course, will make your embroidery journey quick effortless with this all-in unit.

The PE900 still has a USB port for you to import your own designs and comes standard with 193 designs built-in along with 11 english fonts.

The PE900 is Wireless LAN enabled and when you are connected, you can send files from your PC directly to the PE900 via the Design Database Transfer option — no USB required — just send and stitch! This is free downloadable software that helps you manage your designs and send them through “PE-Design 11¹/²” for even more flexibility. When you enable the wireless LAN options you’ll get software update notifications and be able to transmit embroidery files from your PC directly to your machine via free and downloadable software that even helps you manage your designs (no USB required).

You can transfer embroidery designs from your PC to your PE900 with the free downloadable software Design Database Transfer. The software does not require a USB and allows you to easily manage your designs and projects.

You can now also dowload the Artispira app for your smartphone and download a variety of patterns or make your by drawing on your mobile device and then transferring them directly to your PE900. With a smartphone and your PE900 you can create while on the go!

The PE900 is iBrodery Platform compatible. You can browse over 5,000 embroider designs on the Brother iBroidery platform choosing from many categories like Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney.

If you are new to the working with embroidery machines the terms bobbin winder or spool cap or how a carriage works may be a little overwhelming at first you can down the PE900 Operations Manual for troubleshooting and basic operations . But, if you are like me, I am most excited about the LCD screen with all of the settings—I need a lot of pictures. And fortunately, the operating manual helps with this.

Note for beginners: please be sure to read the Caution statements about parts and usage as these will be important to safety and the continued operation of this fantastic piece of equipment.  And, be sure to always turn off the machine before remove the embroidery unit (there is a release button on the left-hand side).

With the Brother PE900, there is decent amount of workspace for you to customize until you get the design just the way you want it. And, one of the things we hear most often that people like about the PE800 is that a lot of the customizing can be done right in the machine without the need to do it offline using software. This makes the machine great for quick changes, alterations or designing completely from scratch!

Brother PE800 LCD Screen
LCD Screen
Brother PE800 floral alphabet example
Floral Alphabet Pattern
01.Brother Exclusives

Brother Exclusives

Choose from a variety of exclusive patterns created by Brother.

02. Floral Alphabet Patterns

Floral Alphabet Patterns

Beautiful and ornate floral designs for unique alphabet patterns.

03. Character Patterns

Character Patterns

Characters and and designs from beach fronts to turkeys (not pictured)

04. Frame Patterns

Frame Patterns

Create that perfect frame for a new baby and or an award for a client success.

The new, larger 3.7″ touchscreen is in full color and really easy to use. The buttons are designed as pads so that you won’t get a build up of dust and dirt—just wipe it down with a cloth and you’re good to go!

We definitely did not like Brother’s Design Guide. This is really across the board with Brother products and not just the PE800. This guide is an amalgamation of multiple foreign languages which truly makes it difficult to understand at first until you slog through it. Oh well, at least it has pictures!

But despite the obvious drawback—the guide does provide useful information and you can still get a lot of use out of it. Why don’t they just break it up into languages by section?

This embroidery machine is so easy to use, and its worth repeating, that it is an obvious choice with a 7.4″ hoop for both professionals and beginners and you won’t pay thousands like you would for higher-end machines.

Brother PE900 Accessories

The Brother PE800 embroidery machine comes with a wide assortment of accessories including:

  • Embroidery foot “Q” (on machine)
  • Needle set
  • Bobbin (one is on machine)
  • Seam ripper
  • Scissors
  • Cleaning brush
  • Screwdrivers (1x large; 1x small; 1 disc-shaped)
  • Bobbin center pin and instruction sheet
  • Spool cap (1x large; 1x medium on machine)
  • Thread spool insert
  • Spool net
  • Bobbin case (no color on the screw; on machine)
  • Embroidery Frame Set 7in x 5in (18cm x 13cm; large)
  • Embroidery bobbin thread (90 weight, white)
  • Accessory bag
  • Dust cover
  • Operatiation manual
  • Quick reference guide
  • Embroidery design guide

And, for information about Brother’s optional accessories you can download their Accessories Catalog.

Brother PE900 Key Specifications

Here are some key aspects that will hopefully provide you with a better understanding about why we like this incredible machine.

Uncomplicated Bobbin Winding

The bobbin is an essential component of an embroidery machine. This model has an excellent bobbin winding system specially designed for beginners who don’t know much about using embroidery machines.

Large Working Area

The Brother PE900 embroidery machine has ample working space for embroidery work, at 5″ x 7″. Another benefit of this mid- to large-sized machine is that you don’t need to rehoop several times while completing your embroidery tasks.

You can easily handle an extra-large size embroidery design where the division of the cloth is impossible. You can adjust the same fabric in different small options, and easy hoop adjustment can handle large designs.

Exceptional Speed

The speed of producing embroidery designs is important—the PE900 embroidery machine has a moderate speed.

While not the highest speed brother offers, it is more than adequate when making medium to large embroidery designs. The stitching speed of the PE900 is 650 stitches per minute, and you can decrease it according to your embroidery design’s complexity.

In our experience, 650 stitches per minute are not the fastest, but it’s still faster than many other embroidery machine models on the market. The LCD display lets you keep track of stitching speed and can easily be adjusted.

As a benchmark, you can easily embroider a large logo within 10 minutes with it. 

Built-in Embroidery Designs

This innovative embroidery machine comes with plenty of built-in embroidery designs. This top-notch embroidery machine has 190 built-in patterns where each design is unique. Designs include holiday, floral, decorative, and many other elegant patterns. You can also download or use hundreds of more designs by importing them with a USB or directly through the Artspira app or iBroidery platform.

The Brother PE900 is also easy to customize. You can edit, rotate, mirror, increase size, decrease the size, or perform many editing options to any design. If you want to read more about the design, visit page 18 in the manual. You will be guided thoroughly about the needle types and estimated time to perform a specific embroidery task. Additionally, the built-in font styles are a plus to personalize the designs.  

Software Type

The PE900 machine does not come with any special software. Many people use Hatch embroidery, embrilliance, and SewArt. Its great to shop around and if you can get a free trial you’ll have a chance to learn which software is best.  

There are also free software, for example, Ink/Stitch software; just don’t forget to check the software compatibility with PE900 before getting used to it. It’s always better to read the reviews before installing on your machine. 

Editing Functions

The built-in functions are what really make this machine stand out. The Brother PE900 embroidery machine offers incredible editing functions making your editing work a breeze. You can edit designs and track how the stitches are converted into a beautiful design through the screen. In short, you can observe how a design starts from the beginning.

Additionally, you can add or eliminate different embroidery patterns to create designs according to your needs and requirements. You just edit or customize the option by tapping on a high-quality touch screen, choose from pre-installed fonts, select the design, and it’s all done.

There is built-in memory to import your customized designs using USB or upload via the Design Database Transfer through your enabled Wireless LAN. You can easily change pattern sizes, combine different patterns, change thread colors, and more.

Moreover, you can also get help by watching the tutorials online. Here is one we’ve selected for you:

Video by Kelsey’s Creations

High-Resolution LCD Screen

The Brother PE900 comes with a high-resolution and large 3.7-inches LED touch screen display. The LCD is colorful, which gives you a realistic view of each embroidery design. The sensitivity is at its highest to make the operation easier. In our experience, using the LCD screen is a piece of cake, and you will like it due to its quality.

This is one of the main components of this machine enabling you to manage different operations such as design rearrangement, selection, editing, automatic work, and other exciting features.

This is a high-quality touchscreen and whether you want to use curve letters or monogram design, everything is possible through configuration. Scroll the screen to find the preinstalled designs, fonts, and other exciting features such as mirror images, size alterations, etc.

Free Movement For Quilt & Applique

This embroidery machine is a multitasking machine that can perform quilting tasks perfectly. However, you may want to first download the quilting designs as the device does not offer pre-installed designs. This is a helpful function, and it also helps you get elegant embroidery work in a short amount of time.

The automatic functions, speed, and free movement for quilting & applique make this machine loved by everyone.

Automatic Features of the Brother PE900

With the advancement of technology, brands have started to add intelligent features to embroidery machines. Brother PE900 is also a masterpiece from the Brother brand, having several autonomous features due to intelligent circuitry. Let’s look at the significant automatic embroidery characteristics of this incredible machine.

Just like other, more expensive, embroidery machines, the PE900 also features automatic needle threaders. It’s extremely easy to use, even if you are a beginner at it. It’s a helpful feature for people with weakened eyesight and is time-saving for everyone. You don’t need to mess with the thread all the time, as the machine will do a great job of taking care of it for you. It will easily pass the thread through the tiny hole (eye) of the needle. 

With the many excellent features of this device, a built-in thread trimmer is also at the top of our list due to its ease of use. If you aren’t an expert in trimming the thread, you won’t need to cut the threads to complete a project—you can do it with an automatic thread trimmer on the machine. It not only makes your task easier but also quicker!

Just like a thread trimmer, automatic thread cutters help you cut the thread without effort. It’s completely automated, and a pair of sharp scissors cut the thread within a moment. Each thread is cut easily and quickly as you sew them across the embroidery fabric. 

Important Aspect of the Brother PE900

Here is an important thing you should be aware of before selecting this top-notch machine.

Single Thread Operation

The PE900 is not a multi-thread embroidery machine. It only works with a single thread for all types of stitching work. This doesn’t prevent you from producing multi-color embroidery designs. You just need to change the thread. You can do this easily by using the touchscreen commands to follow the thread-changing process. 

Thread-changing is the only manual process. The reason for this is that with most automatic embroidery machines, there are no options for foot pedals. On the PE900 almost all the functions are automatic and controlled by a touchscreen. These buttons control almost every operation along with a thread trimmer knob to simplify things. 

If you are new to embroidery, and as you acclimate to the machine, we recommend that you start stitching slowly and increase your speed with experience—you should definitely not begin stitching at full speed to start.

Advantages of the Brother PE900

Disadvantages of the Brother PE900

Every embroidery machine has some key differences. In addition to the Single Thread Operation as we just mentioned above, there are some other aspects to this machine that we find disadvantageous:

Not a Sewing Machine

PE900 is an embroidery only machine and is not suitable for general sewing-related tasks.  

A bit Expensive

If we compare it with other embroidery machines, it’s a slightly more expensive. In our opinion, however, it is well worth its price as it has many incredible features and is built for simplicity (which doesn’t me loss of capabilities).

Overall, this is an machine has all of the necessary features such as a high-quality touchscreen, digital editing, LED lighting, and is quiet working. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the brother PE900 worth it?

Brother PE800 comes with many excellent features, quality build and is suitable for beginners and professionals. In our experience and according to customer reviews, this machine is worth the money you spend. Also, it’s a dedicated embroidery machine. 

Has the Brother PE900 been discontinued?

No, the Brother PE900 is a current, top-notch quality embroidery machine that replaces the Brother PE800. It’s one of the most loved machines due to its incredible features.

Can you sew with the Brother PE900?

Remember that Brother PE900 is a dedicated embroidery machine, and not a traditional sewing machine. That means you can only perform embroidery tasks with it.

What are the dimensions for the Brother PE900?

The Brother PE900 embroider machine has the following dimensions of 9.49″ x 17.48″ x 11.81″.

What size hoop comes with brother PE900?

The hoop size of the Brother PE900 embroidery machine is 7.4″ x 4.1″. This size is suitable for medium to large-size embroidery work. If you want extra-large embroidery, you need to divide it into sections. In short, it’s ideal for all types of home embroidery work. 

The Final Verdict

We have shared all the important details about this embroidery machine. And, after analyzing the usage, features, pros, cons, and other aspects, we would definitely recommend this amazing machine for beginners and professionals. It has plenty of positive reviews due to its ease of use and versatility.

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