That looks decent, but it is a flat bed lathe. There is a good reason why the pro cnc lathes are all slant beds... helps get rid of the monster pile of snarls that get generated. Mills aren't as bad, because you get chips instead of continuous spirals of swarf that quickly jams up everything (when cutting aluminum).
The SL280 is more comparable to the SPL15 (except with a massive casting, linear ways, servos, 3x the weight, 10x the rapids....and not quite twice the price).
Again, this is like alibaba (same machines in fact...). Lots of pretty pictures, specs that look good on paper, but until you have users posting glowing reviews, I would hold off. All you have to do is venture into the Syil and Smithy forums on this site, and see that it is still a ghost town, despite the glossy photos they have online of their machines.
The fact that Smithy has jumped from offering only 2 cnc machines (the Novakon mill and the Syil Lathe, IIRC) to an entire stable of machines isn't really a positive signs. I suspect they will have growing pains as they try to provide customer service to 12 customers with 12 different machines. A smarter choice would be to add a couple machines per year, get a good customer base and a solid commitment from their Chinese factory to provide a quality product.
Unless a company is ordering hundreds of machines a year (like Tormach), they are going to have a lot of difficulty demanding a consistent quality product from their supplier. In the words of Sieg Industries "The suitor of the Emperor's daughter has no clothes" (translation: you are too much of a PIA to deal with, we have more important customers, so take a long walk off a short dock).
With Tormach, you know you have a solid company that stands behind their product, that is well built without corners being cut like you see on most low-price-point chinese machinery, and they have established a stable commitment from their Chinese partners.
I hope Smithy takes off, as some of these machines look pretty nice, and offer machines that (on paper) are part-way between the Tormach and a Haas in price and capabilities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSByNVpvXeg