I have been looking at a Hurco VM1. It seems to be a good overall package to fit our needs. Small footprint, good control capabilities, and decent price. Has anyone bought one and what do you think of it? Are there any shortcomings? How is the spindle?

There's one in my shop that the green guys get to run. The rest get to run high end japanese stuff. It's just not the same. It's good at what it does. Just takes a while for the spindle to get to 8K. And when you run everything at 8K that's a bit of a pita.

Have you looked at the Makino VMC's yet? They put out an excellent machine. I saw one from program to setup to production when visiting a friend in a different shop. It was like seeing Southern Whop A.. in Aluminum 7075. :D Very exciting in action.

I have been looking at a Hurco VM1. It seems to be a good overall package to fit our needs. Small footprint, good control capabilities, and decent price. Has anyone bought one and what do you think of it? Are there any shortcomings? How is the spindle?
Just make sure you get the options you need. I use to be a senior application engineer for them. What kind of work do you do and what options were you getting. Where is Canada are you I may know the dealer.

We have one and use it to produce moulds for rubber heat presses. It is not in production use where it is running around the clock. We use it 4-8 hours a day. Never had a problem with it.
We mostly cut 7075, 2024 and O-1 with the aluminum being the majority. We have no need for extremely tight finishes. When we do it performs well for what we need. We don't work stainless or exotic alloys.
One drawback is the motor is only 15Hp. Could use more but we are not in a critical production rate mode.
If you need a faster spindle I would get one of the aftermarket highspeed spindles you add on. Cannot tell you about those because we don't use them.
It all depends upon how you use plan to use/abuse it!
mc_n_g

Considering you are looking at the Hurco (which as a comparable machine for it's market segment) don't bother looking at a Makino - yes they are amazing AND they are 3 - 5 times the money. Nowhere near the same market for these 2 machines.