With so many tech products you get what you pay for. This inevitably means the “best” will also be the most expensive. It’s certainly the case here, but just because the P1S is more expensive doesn’t mean it isn’t still good value.

The highlight is that it comes with Bambu’s AMS, a unit that sits on top of the P1S printer and holds four spools of filament and can load and unload them automatically. That means this printer is the only one here, and pretty much the only consumer-level 3D printer that can print in multiple colours without any help from you.

With only one nozzle, multicolour prints aren’t exactly churned out quickly. But the AMS also takes the pain out of changing filament when you want to print something in a different colour to the previous print.

If you don’t care about multicolour, you can buy the non-Combo version of the P1S for quite a bit less.

And beyond colours, the P1S is simply a remarkably good printer. It’s really fast thanks to the use of a coreXY system, and as it’s fully enclosed it’s reliable even when printing with tricky filament types because of the stable ambient temperature. More important, arguably, is that print quality is superb.

If there’s a downside, it’s the rubbish dot-matric screen which seems very out of place on a printer this expensive. But, there are other ways to control the P1S, such as printing from a PC or phone via Wi-Fi. The Creality K1 is a good alternative if you must have a touchscreen, and it also has a few other features such as failed print detection. If you want these from Bambu, you’ll have to pay a lot more for the X1 Carbon.

Some may say the K1 is just a poor copy of the Bambu P1S, but that does it a disservice when so many 3D printers are basically copies of each other. There are two models, the smaller K1 which is cheaper than the larger K1 Max.

The Max offers a 300x300x300 build volume, something not currently available from Bambu and it has an easy-to-use touchscreen. Bed levelling is fully automatic and it even has a LiDAR system that helps ensure prints are successful and good quality.

There’s built-in Wi-Fi and an ‘AI’ camera that can detect when prints are failing, as well as when you might have accidentally left a model or some tools on the build plate.

As both K1 and K1 Max use coreXY systems, they’re just as fast as the Bambu and although quality isn’t quite up to the P1S’s level, it’s still very good.

The Neptune 4 offers everything most people are looking for in a first 3D printer. It’s easy to set up, has auto bed levelling, a colour touchscreen and is pretty fast to boot.

That’s already a lot for the low price, so it’s not too surprising it doesn’t have Wi-Fi. Unlike some of the budget models here, it competes with the coreXY printers for speed thanks to an upgraded print head with much improved cooling over the Neptune 3.

It’s a shame that like the Ender 3 S1 Pro levelling isn’t completely automatic, but once you’ve adjusted the knobs, subsequent levelling is automatic.

Print quality is very good at the default 300mm speed, but it’s a good idea to use an alternative to Elegoo’s slicer which caused us quite a few headaches when prints failed.

The S1 Pro might not be the budget 3D printer you’d expect from an Ender 3, but that’s because it has had all the bells and whistles thrown at it.

There’s the Sprite direct drive print head with dual metal gears for reliable extrusion. It goes to 300C, so you can print with a wide range of filaments. The bed goes up to 110C, too, which helps prints adhere when working with more awkward types of filament.

It isn’t enclosed, of course, and is a bed-slinger, so needs room in front and behind it to accommodate its range of travel. There’s a useful LED strip which is really bright, and a colour touchscreen. Its interface could be improved a bit, but it’s not bad.

Print quality is very good, but it isn’t amazingly fast. To improve it you can buy Creality’s Sonic Pad – a Klipper-based touchscreen – but this adds a lot of cost and hassle. If speed is important, choose a printer that offers 300-500mm/sec out of the box.

As already mentioned yYou tend to get what you pay for with 3D printers, and the Vyper sits right in the sweet spot. It ticks all the right boxes: (proper) auto levelling, a touchscreen, a flexible magnetic sheet for easy print removal and a decent build volume of 240x240x265mm.

It’s easy to assemble, prints reliably and offers good quality with minimal tweaking.

You’ll get better quality from Creality’s Ender 3 S1 Pro, but that’s more expensive, and you’ll forego fully automatic bed levelling.

For most people, the Vyper offers good-enough quality at a sensible price with reliable first layers every time.

The Halot One Plus is an easy-to-use resin 3D printer that has a good-sized build volume, prints reliably and at high quality. It’s quite expensive compared to rivals, especially in the UK.

The Halot One Plus is a resin printer, so is very different to the others here. Instead of using filament on a reel, it prints using liquid resin which is cured, layer by layer, using UV light.

Build volume is smaller than the FDM printers here, but it’s still relatively large for a resin printer, and the screen’s high resolution means models have lots of fine detail.

The Halot One Plus printed ultra-reliably in our tests, but if you are keen on a resin printer, bear in mind that you have to clean up prints afterwards, which usually means buying a separate washing and curing device that looks a lot like a resin printer and takes up the same amount of desk space.

The Aquila S2 is a less expensive alternative to others here, but still has most of the features you’d want, including a PEI sheet that helps prints to stick while printing, but makes it simple to remove them afterwards.

You can print with a variety of materials, including PETG, thanks to the fact the hotend can reach 300°C and the bed 100°C.

Bed levelling, though, is manual, and there’s no touchscreen: the colour screen is operated using a knob.

When you’ve levelled it, though, prints are great: we had success with several print-in-place models, but like most of the printers here, you may find intricate models require a raft to succeed.

Most 3D printers are open, but the Sermoon is fully enclosed. This, and the fact it has a touchscreen interface designed for beginners, means it’s well suited to kids.

There’s a safety feature that pauses printing when the door is opened, but the enclosure also means you should be able to print with warp-happy materials more easily.

However, that isn’t quite the case as the heated bed can reach only 80°C, but you really need 100°C for ABS. 

The build volume of 175 x 175 x 165mm is smaller than others here, but there is a built-in camera so you can keep tabs on your prints when you’re not in the same room, and an LED strip lets you see what’s printing.

If you’re after a 3D printer that arrives fully built and is relatively simple to use – and you mainly want to print using common PLA filament, it could be ideal. The main issue is the high price, but if that’s not a hurdle, then it’s a decent choice.