I was looking at getting a mill and a lathe, and was reading up on them.
Here is a very good post on
machines for noobs 101. You can also check out CNCnation for info as well.
Basically it gets down to you get what you pay for, and buy cheap buy twice. Most of the older more experienced guys hate the small and cheap HF machines, tho many people like them for lite work. Ultimately they are limited, sloppy, frustrating and take a lot of work to get up to useable levels. These guys tend to not like the all in one machines as well (mill/lathe combo) for similar reasons (jack of all trades, master of none)
The comments I've seen on CNC for noobs is basically you are better off getting a manual machine and learning how to machine properly rather than trying to cheat thru it relying on software to make up for lack of skill. Also, cnc seems better suited for repeatitive and mass produced parts, or parts with complex curves. If you are making some simple one-off part, it would be faster to do it manually than spend all the time programming and debugging a cnc design.
That's the summary of what I've read so far, I don't have a mill, so IDK what is right for sure.