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We’ve added more information about our upcoming top pick, the Bambu Lab A1 mini, to What to look forward to. We’re currently testing its big brother, the A1, as well. Swing Type Wire Pointing Machine
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 P1P because it’s easy to set up, it makes fantastic prints, and it takes care of all the calibration for you, so you can get right down to printing.
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 the manufacturing tool you need.
This 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 a scanner for checking print quality, an enclosed print space, a tougher nozzle, and other features for printing engineering-grade materials.
This is the best printer for larger or taller printing jobs, such as cosplay or art pieces, thanks to its oversize print bed.
This printer makes great prints with no manual calibration, and in our tests it took only a short time to set up.
The Bambu Lab P1P has one of the simplest setup procedures we’ve seen, as it automatically calibrates itself, removing one of the most annoying hurdles to getting started.
The P1P prints tiny details more reliably than the competition and has a bed measuring 256 by 256 by 256 mm, which is likely large enough for both hobbyists and people who design and sell prints. Bambu Lab’s slicer software connects directly to the printer and makes printing wirelessly easy—in contrast to other printers, which can be annoying in that regard. For repairs, Bambu Lab sells a whole suite of replacement parts with well-cataloged documentation.
The big sibling to our top pick, this printer adds a scanner for checking print quality, 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 P1P, but adds features for people who want even more reliability and the option to print with stronger materials.
In addition to everything the P1P offers, 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 (an optional upgrade for the P1P), 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 is the best printer for larger or taller printing jobs, such as cosplay or art pieces, thanks to its oversize print bed.
If you’re planning to print a sci-fi helmet or custom shelving brackets, a larger printer allows you to make the entire part in one shot rather than splitting it into smaller components and gluing them together. Measuring 300 by 300 by 400 mm, the print bed of the Artillery Sidewinder X2 gives you more room for bigger jobs. This model also offers easy setup and an intuitive menu, and in our tests it produced fantastic prints.
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 Elegoo Mars 3.
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 roleplaying 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 know how to use CAD (computer-aided design) software. An easy 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 P1P and X1 Carbon, 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 frontrunner 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 a few years, and now we recommend printers from the startup Bambu Lab.
Many of the printers we’ve tested have come and gone within the span of a few years. So it’s not out of the question that you might someday find yourself without much support from the company that made your printer. It’s also possible 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. It’s a good idea to weigh how comfortable you are with exposure to some fumes before buying.
On the environmental side of things, consider that you’re investing in a machine that works primarily with plastics. It’s possible to recycle or compost certain types of 3D-printed plastics (polylactic acid, or PLA, being the most sustainable of the common varieties), but the process can be complicated. You also have the option to invest in a spendy recycling system of your own.
No matter what price range you’re considering, we’ve concluded that the best 3D printers offer the following features:
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 2023 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 models with each printer, including current popular models on websites like 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 printer makes great prints with no manual calibration, and in our tests it took only a short time to set up.
The Bambu Lab P1P represents a breakthrough for 3D-printing hobbyists: Thanks to this fully self-calibrating machine, the days of tediously leveling print beds by hand and setting z-heights are over. With a print bed measuring 256 by 256 by 256 mm, as well as a reliable direct-drive extruder that makes it easier to print with flexible materials, it’s also a great 3D printer, full stop.
It’s easy to set up, and you can start printing quickly. Unlike many printers from Anycubic and Creality, Bambu Lab’s P1P comes nearly fully assembled, and after you open the box and pull out the printer, it takes only 15 to 30 minutes before you’re ready to print. You have to attach the printer’s screen, unscrew a few screws holding the build plate in place, and remove a bunch of Styrofoam. Once you’re ready to hit the power button, the printer shows a QR code for you to scan with a smartphone, which connects the printer to a user account for wireless printing.
Wireless setup and printing are extremely easy. Wireless setup for the P1P is similar to the process for many other home electronics devices: After you download the Bambu Handy app, make an account, and scan the QR code on the printer’s screen with your phone, the printer automatically connects for printing. It’s a breeze compared with Prusa’s wireless-connectivity setup, which even in 2023 requires moving files onto flash drives and editing a text file in Notepad.
In addition, when you log in to the Bambu Studio slicer on your computer, the printer is automatically connected and ready to print. This integration doesn’t mean that the P1P is a closed system; it still prints the same G-code files as every other typical 3D printer does.
We didn’t see any reason, however, to branch out from Bambu Studio, which is a full-featured slicer that worked seamlessly with the printer in our tests.
It quickly makes high-quality prints. Once you hit the print button, the printer automatically levels its own bed and then gets to work without any intervention on your part. The P1P prints about twice as fast as printers we’ve recommended before, including the Prusa Mini+ and MK3S+, due to a suite of Bambu Lab–developed algorithms. These features help to compensate for vibration that the machine creates as it moves, allowing for more precise movement even as the print head travels faster and faster. Other printers, such as the Creality K1, can keep up with the P1P’s speed, but they do so at the expense of print quality.
It’s best for common printing materials. Because the P1P has a hotend that can reach 300 degrees Celsius and a heated bed that can maintain 100 degrees Celsius, it can print with nearly any plastic that’s in filament form. After testing, we can confirm that it easily prints with common materials such as PLA, PETG, TPU, and water-soluble PVA.
However, you may want to do a few upgrades before printing with ABS plastic or carbon-fiber-infused filament, such as swapping out the hotend for a hardened-steel version and adding sides for temperature stability.
It’s open to upgrades. Bambu Lab sells a bunch of optional add-ons for the printer, including the Automatic Material System, which allows you to print with up to four filaments simultaneously; in addition, if sliced correctly, the machine will swap between filaments to make multicolored prints. You can also upgrade the nozzle for engineering-grade materials or, as mentioned above, add sides to better manage the temperature.
This flexibility is rare for 3D printers, and it’s a terrific option for anyone who might want to print with multiple colors in the future. Prusa also offers a multi-material system and just released a new version that we haven’t yet tested, but previous versions provoked negative feedback on customer forums for years.
Note that the P1P and X1 Carbon don’t use standard nozzles. Their proprietary nozzle and hotend packages are available for $10 to $15 each. However, the Bambu Labs hotends are high quality, and the replacement process is easy (video).
It’s repairable, as long as Bambu Lab sells 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. The printer will also remind you about maintenance periodically.
The big sibling to our top pick, this printer adds a scanner for checking print quality, 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 is the next step up over the P1P 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—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. Bambu Lab has clearly built its slicer using Prusa’s open-source PrusaSlicer, but 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 printer 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 has led to 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 was accompanied by 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. 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. Prusa and its practices are a great example of that open-source mentality.
Bambu Lab provides detailed instructions and YouTube videos on its website regarding how to install and replace many parts of the 3D printer, which is likely to prove a valuable resource for many owners.
It’s capable of printing with many engineering-grade materials. Whereas the P1P is mainly intended for printing with plastics such as PLA, PETG, and TPU, which are cheap and strong enough for most hobbyist uses, 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 P1P, this printer is fully enclosed, which helps regulate the temperature of your 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.
This is the best printer for larger or taller printing jobs, such as cosplay or art pieces, thanks to its oversize print bed.
For larger prints, the Artillery Sidewinder X2 offers a great balance of size, ease of use, and premium features, typically for about the same price as our top pick. Its print bed, which measures 300 by 300 by 400 mm, offers more than twice the print volume of the Bambu Lab P1P, so you have lots of space for 3D-printing cosplay helmets or lampshades, for example. Its direct-drive extruder makes it great for flexible filament, as well.
This machine isn’t for everyone, though, due to its size and impracticality for most everyday prints. Because it’s so large, it needs a dedicated space, and its larger print bed also means you’ll have a tougher time leveling it. But if you want a printer that can keep up with your Mandalorian cosplay idea, the Sidewinder X2 can do it.
It needs to be assembled and calibrated, but the process isn’t laborious. The Sidewinder X2 has a more involved setup process than our top pick, similar to that of many other partially assembled 3D printers. You simply need to mount the printer’s gantry, the tall part of the printer that moves the extruder around, to the base; doing so requires inserting four screws to secure the gantry to the base and then plugging in a few well-labeled cables.
However, the manual that accompanies the Sidewinder X2 is not translated perfectly and can be a bit confusing. And unlike the Bambu Lab P1P and X1 Carbon, the Sidewinder X2 requires you to manually level the bed. A leveling menu makes that process easier and puts the extruder in the correct place for each step of the calibration.
It can run long print jobs for bigger projects. The Sidewinder X2 produced excellent test prints and did especially well on taller prints that were larger than anything we could print using our other picks. For instance, we scaled the honeycomb vase test model up to 10.5 inches tall, and the resulting print had equally smooth surfaces from bottom to top. Prints that took an especially long time to complete, such as a 34-hour print we ran for a colleague’s cosplay outfit, ran without issue or incident and produced nearly perfect results.
However, while long-term testing this printer, one Wirecutter writer found pausing and resuming a print when swapping filament to be unexpectedly difficult. We didn’t test for this scenario in our original testing, where we generally printed parts without interruption.
As a result, this might not be the printer for you if you live in an area with frequent power outages, or if you like to swap between filaments mid-print.
It requires a dedicated printing space. You need a workspace that’s at least 24 inches deep, 18 inches wide, and 36 inches tall to accommodate the Sidewinder X2. This especially large printer could be a tough sell for people who live in small apartments or don’t have a dedicated office or studio.
If you want a cheaper option, especially for kids: The Monoprice MP Cadet is a great printer if you want to print smaller models, and it’s a perfect intro to the hobby. In our testing, this $200 printer’s output looked just as good as the results from printers that cost twice as much, and its small size makes it especially desk friendly.
Its removable, unheated bed is small at 100 by 105 by 100 mm, but it’s also more suitable for little fingers, and it releases finished prints with ease (though it puts your prints at risk of warping). However, this machine is slower than more expensive printers such as the Bambu Labs P1P and X1 Carbon, and its wireless connectivity is a bit more annoying to set up.
This printer is a few years old, and recently it has been going in and out of stock. But if you can find it, we think it’s a good budget option.
If you’re a tinkerer or an open-source contributor: The Prusa MK4 is a great 3D printer that’s a worthy successor to the MK3S+, as it adds faster printing, a new extruder and hotend design, and fully automated calibration. It makes prints nearly identical to those of competitors, and it’s quieter while doing so.
However, it’s the fourth iteration of Prusa’s design, which was built for engineers and the DIY-minded, while the Bambu Lab P1P and X1 Carbon represent the first generation of a more user-friendly printer.
If you’re a Prusa fan, if you’re knowledgeable about computers and inclined to support a company dedicated to open source, or if you’re experienced in 3D printing and in need of a reliable workhorse that doesn’t need to connect to the internet, the MK4 has a lot of modern features and a familiar design. For most people, who are likely to want a printer that works right out of the box and are not concerned about how it’s made, either Bambu Lab printer is a better option.
If you need an even larger print bed than on the Artillery Sidewinder X2: The build plate of the Anycubic Kobra Max is 4 inches longer and wider than that of our also-great pick, with dimensions of 400 by 400 by 400 mm, and that build plate is removable, too.
However, this printer’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. It’s about 2.5 feet wide and long, so it can’t fit on most desks, and even if you can fit it on one, it’s likely to dominate that workspace. As a result, this printer is best for those who have a dedicated workshop or large workspace.
Size aside, we found that this printer was easy to set up and calibrate, and it kept its bed level throughout weeks of printing. We had a small issue in which the printer’s nozzle would sometimes make contact with a print in progress and drag across infill, especially above about 80 millimeters of z-height. This problem never knocked a print off the print bed, but it did cause some surface blemishes. An intermediate or experienced user could likely tune the printer further to eliminate this glitch.
After months of testing, the Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D printer will be our new top pick. Bambu Lab’s printers are all incredibly easy to use, but the A1 mini puts that ease of use into a smaller, truly desktop-sized printer. It also prints very quickly and accurately, requires little setup, and costs just $300. For $160 more, you can get an add-on that allows easy multi-color or multi-material printing. We’ve held off recommending the printer until you could buy it, as it’s only been available for pre-order since it launched in September. Now that it’s readily available, we’re working on an update to this guide with all the details. Keep an eye out for that soon.
Bambu Lab has also released another 3D printer since we last updated this guide: the mid-sized Bambu Lab A1. We’re testing it now as a possible top pick contender, and will update you as soon as we can.
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 and Monoprice’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.
3D printing creates a lot of plastic waste. Between failed prints, test prints, support material, and excess material purged while 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. Unfortunately, not many services recycle or repurpose traditional 3D-printing materials.
Though many manufacturers produce recycled filament, it’s difficult to find any that accept filament scraps from hobbyists. The few recycling programs that we were able to find were either notably expensive, such as this nearly $180 recycling box from Terracycle, or vague about how the process works.
Filament recycling machines, which would allow you to recycle your own filament, also exist. But unfortunately, 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. One of the authors of this guide, Dave Gershgorn, collects his PLA scraps in a bread-loaf pan and then places them in a 300-degree oven until they melt into a brick. At the very least, this minimizes the tiny shards of plastic he’s throwing away.
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 Prusa Mini+ was our previous top pick in this guide and remains a great printer. However, for about $100 more, the Bambu Labs P1P prints twice as fast and offers automatic calibration, a larger print volume, easier wireless printing, and the option to upgrade to multicolor printing.
The Anycubic Kobra Go is a budget printer that’s regularly on sale for less than $200. But in our testing, we found that assembly would be difficult for an absolute beginner; even with our intermediate experience level, the process took about an hour and a half. The instructions are not entirely clear, especially if you’ve never built a 3D printer before, and some of the calibration aspects are a bit slapdash. Once we set the printer up, it was much louder than any of our current picks, and its menus were more cumbersome to navigate than those of either Bambu Lab printer we recommend. One last annoyance: Setting the z-height for the extruder is left to trial and error, rather than performed through a built-in tool as on some other printers.
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 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. Finally, the M5 costs $800, which is expensive considering its shortcomings.
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 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 K1 is the company’s new flagship printer, and its design seems to be very heavily based on, if not copied from, the Bambu Labs 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.
This article was edited by Ben Keough and Erica Ogg.
Dave Gershgorn is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. He’s been covering consumer and enterprise technology since 2015, and he just can’t stop buying computers. If this weren’t his job, it would likely be a problem.
Signe Brewster is an editor on Wirecutter's PC team. She also writes about virtual reality. She previously reported on emerging technology and science for publications like Wirecutter, MIT Technology Review, Wired, Science, and Symmetry Magazine. She spends her free time quilting and pursuing an MFA in creative writing.
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Pulley type wire drawing machine 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).