Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

If you are going to be using your mixer for dough I suggest getting the highest wattage you can afford. Furthermore I personally (as a novice bread maker with muscular dystrophy so the kneading ability certainly saves me A LOT of energy) highly recommend a model with the SPIRAL dough hook and not the one on lower end models.

I got a new KA this year, after several months of research on what kind is right for me, I chose a 5-quart Pro Plus, it's 450 watts and has worked like a dream every single time. I have read that anything under and around 300 watts is not good on the machine if you make a lot of dough. And some attachments are highly stressful or may not work on a lower wattage machine.

However you need to consider whether you want bowl-lift or lift head, we had a lift head for 18 years, after switching to bowl I find I like the bowl lift much better, but I also have a wider bowl which makes adding ingredients very easy without stopping the machine.

Pricewise I suggest QVC if you're looking to buy new, if KA is featured they have an easypay option, usually 4 or 5 interest free payments. If you want refurbished check Amazon or the KitchenAid website, just be warned I had some issues with Amazon getting their descriptions mixed up and was told they would not guarantee which one you receive, and since I only wanted the spiral dough hook I chose to buy a new model through QVC.

But I will say if I were to get an Artisan I probably would've gone through Amazon as if you scroll through color options, prices can vary by almost a hundred dollars so if you aren't too attached to a specific color you can probably get a phenomenal deal.

Kohls.com has a comparison chart of the mixers they sell that was helpful to me in finding what specifications I needed, also browse around the internet for what people have to say, the KA website also has a discussion forum with specific posts about "what mixer is right for me?" and I found that very helpful as well.

There are rebates this time of year and please bear in mind you will (hopefully) have this machine for decades so that's why I suggest getting the best model you can afford. Good Luck!

Before dropping a whole lot of cash on any appliance -- especially one you cannot simply replace if you don't like it -- I suggest you so some research. Go to Consumer Reports and similar sites and look for reviews and comparisons. Cooks Illustrated has an article on stand mixers. It's is part of their subscription site though. (You sign up for a free 14-day trial membership.)

Check www.ConsumerSearch.com for reviews, too. They consolidate reviews from multiple sources, and always include Cooks Illustrated's tests if there are any available. My only concern with CI reviews is that they don't seem to address overall durability issues, just performance (but I could be mistaken). Here's some of what was said recently about mixers:

Cook's Illustrated rates the KitchenAid Professional at the top of its list of kitchen mixers. They say the wide bowl spews flour more readily than tall-bowl mixers, but that it makes a smoother job of scraping and adding ingredients. In addition, the KitchenAid Professional 600 combines dough faster and more easily than other models tested. If you want to make bread dough in your mixer, reviews say the KitchenAid Professional 600 should be your first choice. We did read some sporadic complaints about durability, but most owner reviews are positive. The latest user reviews continue to praise this machine for its last-a-lifetime quality and performance, although some say it's noticeably louder than smaller KitchenAid mixers. A few remark that if you don't plan to mix bread and heavy dough, the Artisan is a much better value.

We did find some good reviews for stand mixers other than those manufactured by KitchenAid. Reviewers say the DeLonghi DSM5 (*est. $295) , which is known in other countries as the Kenwood Chef Classic, is on par with the KitchenAid Professional 600. One review in a New Zealand-based Consumer magazine gives it top billing for overall performance, noting that the pouring shield is a perfect fit. Cook's Illustrated says, "Watching this compact mixer expertly cream butter and sugar into a uniform consistency was a thing of beauty." Like the wide-width bowl of the KitchenAid Professional 600, the DeLonghi's bowl helps keep ingredients "low in the bowl" which cuts down on the need to scrape, say editors. The KitchenAid Professional scores a notch higher because the DeLonghi shimmied and made loud noises while mixing heavy ingredients. Customer reviews at Amazon.com are mixed. A few reviews say the DeLonghi mixer is better than a KitchenAid, but others complained that the machine is simply average in overall quality. The DeLonghi DSM5 does have a streamlined modern appearance, in contrast to the more traditional-looking KitchenAid machines. The 5-quart DeLonghi mixer has dishwasher-safe parts, a splash guard, dough hook, whisk and beater. Optional accessories include a juicer, potato peeler, slicer, grain mill and pasta maker.

I search sites like Amazon for volumes of consumer feedback about quality issues, ability to get things repaired, etc.

I recently bought a KitchenAid Professional 600 Series from Amazon for $210 after a rebate (choose the 'merigue' color). I probably don't need that much power, but it was cheaper than most of the Artisan models. If you don't mind a white mixer, it's a great deal. Works great so far, but as someone else mentioned it is rather noisy.