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Dave Gershgorn is a writer covering monitors, laptops, and tablets. He is a certified display calibrator through the Imaging Science Foundation. Pipe Production Machine
We’re currently testing new 3D printers from Prusa, Elegoo, and Bambu Lab. We’ve also added information about upcoming software changes to the Bambu Lab A1 Mini to Flaws but not dealbreakers.
A 3D printer unlocks a world of creation, giving anyone with a few hundred bucks the power to manufacture custom components with sub-millimeter precision. And you don’t have to be an engineer to get started.
We recommend the Bambu Lab A1 Mini because it’s easy to set up and makes high-quality prints without needing any manual calibration. Plus, this model fits more easily on a desk than previous picks.
This 3D printer makes great prints with no manual calibration, and in our tests it took only a short time to set up.
The big sibling to our top pick, this printer adds an enclosed print space, a tougher nozzle, and other features for printing engineering-grade materials.
This printer makes excellent prints and is quieter than our upgrade pick. We expect it to receive hardware and software updates for years.
Whether you’re a tinkerer interested in prototyping or a tabletop-gaming enthusiast seeking to expand your arsenal of tiles and terrain, a 3D printer might be just the manufacturing tool you need.
This 3D printer makes great prints with no manual calibration, and in our tests it took only a short time to set up.
The Bambu Lab A1 Mini stood out from the other 3D printers we tested as the easiest model to use, while maintaining competitive print quality and speed. Its guided setup process doesn’t require fiddling with any settings, and Bambu Lab offers both a mobile app (to help set up the printer and monitor print progress) and desktop software (to prepare and send files to the printer). The A1 Mini has software similar to that of its more expensive siblings in the P1 and X1 lines, and it’s lacking only in upgrades meant for printing the trickier materials ABS and carbon fiber. If you need that functionality, check out our upgrade pick, the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon.
The big sibling to our top pick, this printer adds an enclosed print space, a tougher nozzle, and other features for printing engineering-grade materials.
The Bambu Lab X1-Carbon is the company’s flagship printer. It produces prints about as quickly and reliably as our top pick, the A1 Mini, but adds features for people who want the reliability of a heated, enclosed printing area and the option to print with stronger materials.
The X1-Carbon has an upgraded screen, an enclosed print bed for better temperature control, and a lidar sensor to scan your first layer for printing errors. Along with a hardened-steel nozzle, these features make the X1-Carbon a versatile printer that can work well in schools or industrial prototyping labs. It also comes with a camera that allows you to check in on your print.
This printer makes excellent prints and is quieter than our upgrade pick. We expect it to receive hardware and software updates for years.
The Prusa MK4S is a workhorse of a 3D printer that’s easy to set up. Thanks to its new cooling-duct system, it makes high-quality prints as quickly as—or faster than—our other picks, even when printing objects with extreme angles or overhangs.
It’s a direct competitor to our upgrade pick, but it’s smaller and quieter, so it fits better on a desk. And Prusa has a proven track record of supporting its printers for years, including selling kits to upgrade your existing printer to get new features. However, multi-material printing is still difficult to set up and could take a few hours to build and get fully working with the machine. In contrast, in our experience the Bambu Lab multi-material upgrades required only about five minutes of setup.
Dave Gershgorn is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter and an avid 3D-printing enthusiast. He has printed through dozens of rolls of filament, has owned multiple printers, and has designed custom 3D-printable models for home improvement, product testing, and cosplay. His current personal printers are the Prusa i3 MK3S+ and the Anycubic Photon Mono M5s.
People who need to quickly make prototypes or custom plastic parts can get the most mileage out of a 3D printer. These machines are also useful tools for anyone who likes tinkering or teaching children about STEM concepts.
Beyond those specific situations, it’s also just plain fun to have a machine to print files that you find online, especially if you like tabletop role-playing games or any activity where you use small tokens, counters, or pieces. You can find plenty of downloadable designs online at 3D-model libraries such as Printables and Thingiverse.
The range of possibilities is even wider if you’re familiar with CAD (computer-aided design) software. An easy-to-use starting point is Tinkercad, free online 3D-modeling software from Autodesk. The same company also makes more advanced modeling software, called Fusion 360, which is free for hobbyists (and what we use personally).
But anyone can work with a 3D printer: Most printers are easy enough to use that a child (with adult supervision) can print any of the endless variety of toy designs available.
Be warned: No 3D printer is unbreakable. A day will come when you’ll need to replace a part or get your hands dirty in some other way.
Replacement parts are available for Bambu Lab’s A1 Mini and X1-Carbon, as well as Prusa’s MK4S, but not all 3D printers are equally easy to fix. You might want to avoid 3D printing altogether if you aren’t confident that you’d be able to perform a minor repair on the equivalent of a household appliance.
Prospective buyers should also be aware that the 3D-printing industry is in a constant state of upheaval. MakerBot, which was long considered the front-runner among home 3D printers, stopped marketing to hobbyists and home users several years ago in order to focus on commercial and educational institutions. We thought Prusa made the best 3D printers for hobbyists for a few years, and now we think printers from the startup Bambu Lab are the easiest to use, especially for people who are new to printing. We still recommend Prusa models for anyone who cares most about the longevity and reliability of their printer, though Prusa printers are still less intuitive for beginners than our top picks.
Many of the printers we’ve tested have come and gone within a few years. So it’s possible that you might someday find yourself without much customer support—or that a new breakthrough will suddenly leave you with outdated technology.
In addition, a 3D printer brings health and environmental concerns. When a printer melts plastic as part of the extrusion process, it releases volatile organic compounds and other particulates. The CDC recommends (PDF) using printers in a “negatively pressured area with a dedicated ventilation system,” which is not a feature found in your average home. Before buying a 3D printer, it’s a good idea to weigh how comfortable you are with exposure to some fumes.
3D printing creates a lot of plastic waste. Between failed prints, test prints, support material, and excess material purged while you’re switching filaments, if you 3D-print often, you’ll be left with a nontrivial amount of plastic that you can’t recycle through traditional means.
Though many manufacturers produce recycled filament, it’s difficult to find any that accept filament scraps from hobbyists. The few national recycling programs we’ve found are either expensive, such as this nearly $200 recycling box from Terracycle, or vague.
Prominent 3D printer maker Prusa has created a world map with smaller, local recycling initiatives that take printed plastic. (The map also lets Prusa printer owners add themselves to offer tech support, provide printing services, or just show off their printer.)
Prusa has tried to find a solution for its own larger-scale plastic waste, testing 10 different recycling plants before eventually deciding to start recycling the waste into filament on its own. In the course of that research, Prusa’s head of sustainability Vladimír Víšek learned that larger recycling plants have issues with 3D-printed plastic since the waste usually comes in very small quantities, and because it’s not readily apparent what kind of plastic a material might be.
Home filament-recycling machines, which allow you to turn bits of shredded plastic back into usable spooled filament, also exist. But they either cost thousands of dollars or need to be built painstakingly from scratch.
Many 3D-printing hobbyists turn to repurposing or minimizing plastic scraps themselves. I collect my PLA scraps in a bread-loaf pan and then place them in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit until they melt into a brick. At the very least, this minimizes the tiny shards of plastic I’m throwing away.
The best way to combat waste, at least according to Víšek, is to think ahead and create less of it. His advice for more sustainable printing: Consider what you actually need to print, make sure your slicer settings minimize the amount of support material you have to print, and be sure to use up the last few feet of filament on each roll.
No matter what price range you’re considering, we’ve concluded that the best 3D printers offer the following features:
We also take into account the company making the printers. Many 3D printer manufacturers have gone out of business and left customers without hardware or software support, while others have tried to lock customers into their own ecosystems using tricks such as proprietary filament. We try to weed such companies out when we can while researching printers to test, but we also keep an eye on companies whose products we currently recommend.
To test each printer, we time how long it takes to pull the machine out of the box and set it up on our desk, and we jot down notes on the initial software installation and navigation process. Then, we get to printing.
In our test prints, we look for obvious flaws. Mediocre prints have readily visible layers or imperfections but still look like a completed model. Failure takes many forms—everything from broken filament string that causes the print to stop to wild spaghetti-like misprints due to software or hardware errors.
Printers usually come with several models preloaded; we always start by printing one of those because they’re carefully optimized for the printer. Errors in such prints typically indicate a problem on the hardware end that we need to address. After the first successful print, we move on to designs we’ve found on Thingiverse.
For our 2024 testing, we chose the following standardized test prints:
These models had a range of detail, overhangs, and scale that would give us an impression of the printers’ strengths.
We also print all sorts of other models with each printer, including current popular models in libraries such as Printables and Thingiverse. Printing a variety of objects, some with tons of detail and others with plain, sloping sides, gives us a good idea of how a printer is likely to perform in the real world.
Almost any 3D printer is capable of creating successful models—experienced users know, or can figure out, how to tweak settings and hardware to get such results. But beginners, or even intermediate users like us, aren’t as likely to know what to do or to care enough to spend time fine-tuning. For the purposes of our testing, we give the printers the basic care they need to function—adhering to the company-recommended setup and settings—but we don’t tweak the printer or software to get better prints unless something goes wrong.
We also note how many times we have to repair a printer, how often each machine needs its print bed leveled, and how difficult it is to remove completed models from the print bed.
This 3D printer makes great prints with no manual calibration, and in our tests it took only a short time to set up.
The ease of setting up the Bambu Lab A1 Mini is unparalleled in the 3D-printing world, and it’s largely why we think Bambu Lab printers are especially great for people who are just starting with 3D printing. We also found daily-operation tasks such as sending prints and changing filament to be painless, and we saw consistently high-quality prints from this machine. It’s small enough to fit on most desks without looming over everything else, as its larger siblings, the Bambu Lab P1P and X1-Carbon tend to do, but it prints just as quickly as those bulkier, more expensive models.
Setting it up and getting started is easy. The A1 Mini requires little assembly and has a guided setup process that requires a smartphone or other device that can read a QR code. After you make a Bambu Lab account and scan a code displayed on the A1 Mini’s screen, the printer appears in your account and becomes accessible through the Bambu Handy app or the Bambu Studio slicer software. The printer also does a full self-calibration, requiring no input or tinkering on your part.
It prints quickly and with good precision. We printed with the A1 Mini for weeks, making functional parts, miniature models, and other popular designs found on 3D-printing sites like Printables. The A1 Mini printed models with precision and high resolution, turning out high-quality results regardless of the model’s size or layer height. This printer’s constant calibration also helped prints stick to the bed well, as it had typical adhesion issues only when parts became very small. With this machine, we never needed to use glue sticks, blue tape, hair spray, or any of the other bed-adhesion tricks that we’ve relied on in the past with other printers.
An optional upgrade makes multicolor printing simple. Bambu Lab introduced the A1 Mini alongside an automatic material-switching machine called the AMS Lite. That add-on costs $150 in a bundle with the A1 Mini or $200 by itself. (Note, however, that it works only with the Bambu Lab A1 series of printers.) Multicolor, or multi-material, printing is usually an add-on feature exclusive to higher-end machines that cost hundreds more than the A1 Mini, such as the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon and the Prusa MK4 line. You can load up to four different filaments onto the AMS Lite, and if they’re Bambu Lab filaments, the printer automatically scans the RFID tags inside and recognizes the material; the Bambu Studio software also recognizes the material and lists it as an option for multicolor printing.
You can do the same thing with any filament and just manually set the filament type and color on the printer. We found, however, that while Bambu Lab filament spools fit well on the AMS Lite’s spool holder, other spools from companies like Prusa were too tight. Some spools, such as cardboard spools from Creality and Overture, fit okay, but others, like the plastic spool for NinjaFlex TPU, were a tight squeeze and wouldn’t fit on the holder.
It’s also important to note that multicolor printing uses a large amount of filament, specifically purging a lot of plastic to ensure that the colors don’t mix in the nozzle; in one test print, we ended up with nearly twice as much waste as printed plastic. Plan the colors on your prints carefully.
It has a smaller print bed than some other printers, but it can fit on a desk. The A1 Mini’s print bed measures 180 by 180 by 180 mm, or about a 7-inch cube. This isn’t the best size for making large props, but you can fit a surprising amount into a 7-inch cube, and the size of the bed didn’t seem limiting during our testing.
It’s best for simple materials such as PLA and PETG. Most hobbyists don’t need plastics with superior tensile strength or increased chemical resistance, so even though this printer is limited to the basics like PLA and PETG, we think that’s reasonable.
Tasks such as switching filament are easy to do and well explained. The A1 Mini’s small touchscreen serves as the main way for you to interact with the printer. You can load models from an SD card, move the print head around, swap filaments, and have the printer perform self-checks.
All of these options are intuitively arranged in menus, and the printer clearly tells you the steps it’s performing during any task: For instance, when you’re switching to new filament, the printer has a checklist of tasks that you can watch it run through, and it prompts you to make sure that the old filament has been completely purged from the nozzle. If not, it gives you the option to push a bit more new filament out, which you can repeat until all the old filament is gone. Though this process might seem relatively simple, Bambu Lab does a good job of guiding nontechnical people through these somewhat involved procedures for maintaining a machine.
It reminds you when maintenance is due. Unlike many other 3D printers, the A1 Mini runs diagnostics often, and it delivers pop-up messages when a belt needs tightening or a part requires lubrication. Accompanying these messages are QR codes that you can scan for documentation on how to perform the maintenance. The previous standard of home 3D-printer maintenance was hoping that someone on YouTube had made a video about the problem you’re having, so these built-in reminders are pretty nice.
It’s repairable—as long as Bambu Lab continues to sell the parts. Though you can’t print your own parts, as you can with a Prusa machine, Bambu Lab does clear a high bar when it comes to repairability. In addition to upgrades, the company sells replacement parts on its website, and it offers guides with pictures and videos for the installation of new parts, as well as periodic maintenance.
Bambu Lab says it will receive more updates. The company states that it will release bug fixes and feature updates for the A1 Mini until September 2028 and security updates until September 2030. But CEO Ye Tao told us that he expects to support printers beyond the dates listed online, which the company puts on the website for regulatory compliance.
The big sibling to our top pick, this printer adds an enclosed print space, a tougher nozzle, and other features for printing engineering-grade materials.
The Bambu Lab X1-Carbon doesn’t make faster or higher-quality prints than our top pick, but it does have a larger and enclosed print bed for people who print with specialty plastics such as ABS or those infused with carbon fiber. It also includes reliability upgrades, such as a lidar scanner that works alongside other sensors to automatically level the bed, as well as automated maintenance reminders.
It’s a high-quality, reliable printer. We printed with the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon over the course of six months and found it to be an easy, reliable printer to work with. Its prints, from small tabletop miniatures to larger custom-designed pieces that needed to hold weight, turned out consistently well. The X1-Carbon is also much faster at printing than competitors—twice as fast as the Prusa MK3S+, our previous upgrade pick—yet it maintains the same print quality.
Bambu Lab’s software makes wireless printing easy. Though Bambu Lab has clearly built its slicer using Prusa’s open-source PrusaSlicer, it has added many of its own features. Most important of those is an automatic process for connecting your printer and setting up wireless printing. It’s a delight to see the X1-Carbon automatically connect to the slicer. Other printers, such as the Prusa MK4, require navigating wireless settings and API keys, and cheaper printers don’t have a wireless connection at all, instead requiring a DIY Raspberry Pi print server called OctoPrint for remote or online printing.
In addition, you can manage certain aspects of the printer when you confirm the print job, such as whether you want to perform various calibrations or record a time-lapse. The printer’s included 1080p camera is adequate for monitoring your print.
It automatically calibrates itself. Most 3D printers still require some form of manual calibration, whether that’s setting the z-height of the nozzle or leveling the bed. The X1-Carbon levels its own bed using a lidar sensor and force sensors in the bed, and in our experience this feature resulted in a long series of great prints.
Prints still failed from time to time, naturally, but those were slicing errors where pieces needed more contact with the build plate, rather than errors with the first layer.
It also issues maintenance reminders. We liked that after a few months, we got a pop-up on the X1-Carbon’s screen reminding us to clean the machine’s carbon rods, which the print head uses to glide across the x-axis. A little while later, the printer reminded us to clean the z-axis lead screws.
Each reminder on the X1-Carbon’s screen appeared along with a QR code to scan with a phone; the link showed us how to perform that particular maintenance. The display of these QR codes is the best use we saw of the X1-Carbon’s 5-inch, 720p touchscreen, which you otherwise use for normal printing tasks.
You can order new parts, as long as Bambu Lab sells them. Bambu Lab sells a wide array of replacement parts on its website, but they are parts that only Bambu Lab can make. Bambu Lab also provides detailed instructions and YouTube videos on its website regarding how to install and replace many parts of this 3D printer, a valuable resource for many owners.
Though restricting parts to proprietary designs is a standard business practice in consumer electronics, it’s a departure from the open-source, DIY mentality promoted by many pioneers of 3D printing and to which 3D printing owes much of its current development.
Bambu Lab guarantees years of updates. The company has committed to provide bug fixes and new features for the X1-Carbon until May 2027 and security patches until May 2029. As with the A1 Mini, CEO Ye Tao told us that he expects to support the X1-Carbon beyond those stated dates.
It’s capable of printing with many engineering-grade materials. Whereas the A1 Mini is mainly intended for printing with plastics such as PLA, PETG, and TPU, which are cheap and strong enough for most hobbyist purposes, the X1-Carbon can print with a much wider variety of filament. Its enclosed print space and heat bed, which can reach 150 degrees Celsius, allow it to print with ABS filament, and its direct-drive extruder and hardened-steel nozzle allow for flexible material and carbon-fiber-infused plastics.
It’s fully enclosed. Unlike the A1 Mini, the X1-Carbon is fully enclosed, which helps regulate the temperature of the print area. This makes printing with material such as ABS far easier, since it prevents cooler, ambient air from causing the plastic to curl and warp before it sets fully. The enclosure also reduces the noise of the fans, as well as the clanking noise that the printer makes whenever it cleans the nozzle.
On top of that, the enclosure makes the printer easier to use if you print only once in a while or go weeks or months between bursts of printing activity. Many other 3D printers aren’t enclosed, so they have delicate exposed parts or can get dusty in storage. In testing, we were able to power the X1-Carbon down, put it away, pull it back out after a week or two, plug it in, and run a self-calibration and get back to printing in minutes.
Bambu Lab allows tinkerers to install an alternate operating system. Bambu Lab’s tight software and hardware integration makes it easy for the company to lock down the printer, preventing the use of alternative software. However, the company has recently allowed a one-way path for X1-Carbon owners to gain root access and upload a more customizable operating system called X1Plus, as long as they’re comfortable with voiding their warranty.
This option might be appealing to only a small number of X1-Carbon owners, but it’s emblematic of the company’s willingness to work with third-party developers—and to listen to community backlash—in a way that makes us more confident recommending Bambu Lab printers.
But the company is also locking down its ecosystem. In January 2025, Bambu Lab announced a planned software update that will add a layer of authentication every time an X1 printer takes certain actions, including printing locally over a home network. It will also require owners to run a new application called Bambu Connect alongside the Bambu Studio slicer, or another approved slicer. This also means that third-party developers like OrcaSlicer now have to work directly with Bambu Lab for access to the authentication scheme, which limits the ecosystem of third-party developers to a pool of the company’s choosing. Bambu Lab did not respond to our questions about how these changes will be implemented. We will be actively reviewing whether our recommendation still makes sense as the Bambu Connect software rolls out to the public.
This printer makes excellent prints and is quieter than our upgrade pick. We expect it to receive hardware and software updates for years.
The Prusa MK4S is a fast, reliable printer that makes very high-quality prints, and one that we expect to receive hardware and software upgrades for years to come. Unlike the manufacturers of our other picks, Prusa sells kits that allow you to upgrade your existing Prusa printer to the latest version every time a new model is released.
In our tests, the MK4S consistently produced nearly flawless prints without need for any calibration or tinkering. Prusa—which has lagged the competition in connectivity—has finally made wireless printing easy and added support for an iOS and Android app that allows you to check on your print progress remotely. The MK4S is also smaller than our top pick and doesn’t come in an enclosure, so it’s a bit easier to fit on a desk.
It’s the best choice if you prioritize future support and upgradability. Prusa’s 3D printers still look pretty similar to when they launched commercially in 2015, which you can see in the company’s support documents. If you poke around there, you can find evidence of how well Prusa supports its printers, including articles on how to upgrade the original MKI printer to the MKII or MKIIS version.
It doesn’t stop there: An MKI updated to an MKII could eventually be upgraded to the MKIII, and so on, up to the current MK4S. Prusa has consistently offered upgrades to keep older printers included when launching newer features.
So while we can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to upgrade your MK4S to the eventual MK5 spec down the line, history sure seems to point in that direction.
It’s a midsize printer that can handle nearly any material. The Prusa MK4S has a bed size of 250 by 210 by 220 mm, similar to that of the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon and roughly the standard size for 3D printer beds (with some minor variations).
It also has a direct-drive extruder, which pulls the filament into the extruder rather than pushing it from somewhere else on the frame. The design is similar to what you can find in our top pick and upgrade pick, and it allows you to print a wider range of material, including flexible materials.
It matches or beats the speed of our top pick. Last year we wrote that the best printers could now print in half the time of older models, thanks to new software and hardware advancements. Prusa’s MK4 was fastest in those tests, and the MK4S builds on that speed by increasing its cooling capabilities with a new fan design, so you can more quickly print more extreme angles and overhangs.
We pushed speeds to about 500 mm per second, which is the maximum print speed of the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon, and found that the MK4S’s print quality at that speed was acceptable. However, we didn’t thoroughly test the effect on print strength or other drawbacks that such faster print speeds might cause.
It’s easy to set up overall, but multi-material printing is more difficult. Setup for the MK4S takes minutes, and it works seamlessly with the company’s cloud-printing service, Prusa Connect. However, compared with our other picks, setting up Prusa’s multicolor printing add-on, called the Multi Material Upgrade 3, or MMU3, takes a lot more time.
The MMU3 can handle up to five different filaments, but you need to assemble the “filament buffers” that hang on the side of the machine to keep the different filaments from tangling. Our other picks don’t require nearly as much assembly in that regard.
It’s certified to not create certain airborne contaminants. Prusa has received a UL 2904 Greenguard certification for this printer when it’s used with Prusa’s Prusament PLA or PETG filament. This is the only home-use printer and filament we’ve seen go through that third-party safety-testing process, which measures for volatile organic compounds and ultrafine particles produced by the machine.
It’s expensive, and some features require more up-front work. These days you can get started printing with a Bambu Lab A1 Mini for only $200, and that printer can print with a wide range of materials at nearly the same size as our larger picks, which makes any more-expensive printer less compelling.
At this writing, the Prusa MK4S costs $1,100 prebuilt or $800 as a kit you build yourself. The prebuilt price is comparable to that of our upgrade pick, the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon, but it doesn’t include easy multi-material printing, which costs extra for either machine. If you also want an enclosure for the Prusa model, it costs an additional $350.
We recommend the Prusa MK4S if you’re serious about upgrading and servicing your printer over time, want a machine that can print its own replacement parts, or need the capability to print materials that require hardened nozzles and don’t want the size of the X1-Carbon. But many beginners are better off with a cheaper model like the A1 Mini.
If you want a midsize printer that won’t break the bank: We were impressed by the Creality Ender-3 V3. It prints at speeds similar to those of our other picks, and it produced fairly clean prints in our testing, though they weren’t flawless like the results from our picks.
The biggest flaw we noticed was ghosting, in which slight wavy echoes of details ran parallel up the print. This effect was almost certainly caused by the printer’s working too fast. It was especially noticeable when we printed V1 Engineering’s ZX and ZY printer frame test, where such artifacts could be seen at a glance.
We also had some issues with connecting the slicer to the printer for wireless printing after adding the printer to our home network through the setup process. We resolved the issue by scanning the network for the printer’s IP address using a smartphone app and manually entering the IP address into our slicer’s settings.
Otherwise, this printer has a lot to recommend it. This model has a larger bed than our top pick and has been on sale for $300, which makes it a good value for a decent 3D printer. Its primary competition is the Bambu Lab A1, which we’re testing for a future update.
We’re now testing several new and exciting 3D printers, including the Prusa Core One, the Elegoo Centauri Carbon, and the Bambu Lab A1.
The Prusa Core One is the company’s new flagship printer for enthusiasts, and is a direct competitor to our current upgrade pick, the Bambu Lab X1 Carbon. Both have CoreXY designs, where the print bed moves in the Z direction (up and down) rather than on the Y axis (front to back). This allows these printers to be completely enclosed, which keeps temperatures higher and more stable, leading to more consistent prints. It also means the printer takes up a smaller footprint on your desk. The Elegoo Centauri Carbon, meanwhile, launches in late February and uses a similar CoreXY design.
The Bambu Lab A1 is a larger version of our top pick, the A1 Mini. However, the A1 has a traditional i3 bedslinger frame, like a Prusa MK4S, which means it can have two Z axis rods compared to the A1 mini’s single Z axis. This extra support means the toolhead and extruder are a bit more stable, at least in theory, and should result in smoother prints. The A1 was previously released in December 2023, and many of the models sold were recalled in June 2024 for an issue with its power plug. Now that the printer has been safely on the market for a few months, we’re ready to test it. We’ll report back with our findings.
3D printers can be finicky, and performing basic maintenance can go a long way toward preventing breakdowns and print flaws. Here’s what you can do to keep your printer running reliably:
Finally, if you’re running into issues with prints sticking to your print bed, and adjusting print temperatures doesn’t help, there could be another solution.
Many printers now come with removable, flexible print beds. If your printer has one, remove the bed and carefully bend it to release your model. Don’t force it, or you’ll risk damaging the bed’s finish. If the print is still stuck, heat the bed back up to its printing temperature and see if the model pops off easier. Next, use a scraper to carefully unstick the edges of the print and then move in a sawing motion toward the center.
If you’re still stumped, another trick you can try is to remove the print bed and stick it in the freezer for an hour. This should shrink the print a little and make it easier to remove.
If you read 3D-printing forums and subreddits, you’ll see many experienced 3D-printing enthusiasts recommending the Creality Ender-3, Ender-3 V2, or Ender-3 Pro as a first printer. The Ender-3 V2 is often available on sale at Microcenter for just $100, and it’s a better printer than our former budget pick, the Monoprice MP Cadet, on nearly every metric. You’ll also find an avid community of Ender-3 owners who post DIY upgrades and guides on how to use the machine, a crucial aspect of learning to operate the printer and troubleshooting when things go wrong.
So why don’t we recommend an Ender-3 model as a top pick or even a budget pick? In our experience, we’ve found that the Ender-3 line requires more setup and more maintenance, and in comparison with our picks it poses a much more difficult learning curve for those who are just getting into 3D printing. As an example, crucial tasks such as leveling the print bed on the Ender-3 require using separate calibration files that might have to be run multiple times or manually moving the print head across the bed, in contrast to Bambu Lab’s easier, more automatic workflows. This manual work adds many minutes of preprint setup for a 3D-printing newcomer versus seconds for our top picks, and in turn it leads to a higher chance of the machine sitting in the corner gathering dust. These processes become rote after time and are made easier by optional upgrades, but initially they require some dedication to learn.
Bambu Lab earned its top-pick and upgrade-pick status for its printers by prioritizing the user experience when building its machines and software. The Bambu Lab printers we recommend are especially easy to set up, and they print reliably without the need for any manual calibration.
That doesn’t mean we don’t like the Ender-3 line. They’re great machines for those who are already mechanically adept or who don’t get easily frustrated while learning a new, complex hobby. However, they’re not the best 3D printers for most people.
This is not a comprehensive list of all the 3D printers we have tested. We have removed any models that have been discontinued or that no longer meet our requirements.
The Creality K1C is a budget-priced alternative to the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon and P1 series. Out of the box, this printer had massive under-extrusion issues that caused prints to fall apart. This behavior could likely be tuned out of the printer, but we prioritize ease of use and flawless out-of-the-box printing, especially for devices that cost nearly $500.
The AnkerMake M5 is an interesting printer that’s well built, easy to set up, and capable of producing fast, high-quality prints. What impressed us most was its speed, as it printed test models nearly twice as quickly as our former upgrade pick, the Prusa MK3S+. (The Bambu Lab X1-Carbon is still faster, though.) Further iterations of this machine might be picks in the future, but this first version was particularly loud in our tests, and the slicer software has not been officially released, as it’s currently listed as being in beta; that beta software lacks many features found in PrusaSlicer and UltiMaker Cura. In our testing, we had some issues with layer adhesion for small details, likely due to the machine’s blistering print speeds, and we also struggled with bed adhesion for smaller parts.
The Artillery Sidewinder X2 was previously our pick for large-format printing, but it’s a few years old now and no longer competitive with 3D printers released in the past year. These days we’re looking for a more automated setup and integrated wireless printing, which the Sidewinder X2 lacks.
The Creality Ender-2 Pro, a $170 competitor to the Prusa Mini+, seems built to look nearly identical to that model. However, in our tests its menus were confusing and made the printer more difficult to operate than any of our picks. Its fans were also drastically louder than those of any other printer we tested.
The Creality Ender-3 S1 Plus is an addition to the Ender-3 line with a high-resolution display and a larger print volume. We found it to be louder, more complicated to set up, and more difficult to level in comparison with the Artillery Sidewinder X2.
The Creality K1 is the company’s new flagship printer, and its design seems to be heavily based on, if not copied from, the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon. We found its print quality to be consistently worse, and although we could monitor the printer from Creality’s app, the software was crammed full of things to buy and ads for Creality’s subscription service.
The Prusa Mini+ was a previous top pick in this guide and remains a great printer. However, for about $200 less, Bambu Lab has made a printer with a similar design that’s easier to use and requires less calibration. Prusa recently updated the Mini+ to print just as quickly as the Bambu Lab A1 Mini or Prusa MK4, but the A1 Mini’s price difference and ease of use still have us favoring the Bambu Lab machine here.
This article was edited by Ben Keough and Erica Ogg.
I am based in Seattle and responsible for Wirecutter’s computer monitor coverage, as well as all our guides to Apple laptops and desktops. I also review higher-powered laptops, such as business laptops and laptops for photo and video editing. Plus, I write our reviews for all-in-one computers, ergonomic keyboards, and home 3D printers. If it has a screen, sits on a desk, and isn’t a basic Windows ultrabook, I’m usually the person to try it out.
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Plastic Processing Machinery Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).