I have this discussion several times a year. Yes Lincoln or Miller are better machines than a Chinese clone or similar but WHAT IF you spend some serious coin on a machine then quickly decide welding is not for you or after a year you realize you never used it. Odds are you wasted your money or will take a significant loss on your investment. I recommend starting with the cheapy Harbor Freight flux machine since it costs about $100 and can weld most of what you'll work with. OR- find your local welding supply store and ask if they'll sell you lessons, then you can learn on their machines and find out if its something you want to pursue- while also learning proper technique. If the local store wont, reach out to your community college- that's exactly what I did and it was beyond worth it. Finally if the store or community college wont help you, find a local weldor and ask, he/she will be glad to make a little side money teaching you their craft. This is not so different from getting in to motorcycles, you'd be insane to buy a brand new Road Glide or Street Glide before you learned how to ride through a rider safety class or started on a little 600cc import like a Honda Shadow. I'm not even going to get in to a debate about the HF flux welder but I'll say this, I'm on my second one which I purchased after getting a Lincoln Tombstone, 210 MP, and SW200. And when welding flux core, you wouldn't be able to tell which bead I laid with the HF versus the 210MP- that comes from practice. I match the machine to the work. When I'm on the go, or welding something thin outside, or welding for a friend- I take the 110amp HF machine every time, I'm not going to use up and lug around my shielding gas from my higher end machines.