I’ve wanted to get into 3d printing for a while now and have been checking out the prusa mk4 and the bambu lab x1.
The bambu looks amazing in all aspects besides repairability and offline printing, with the latter one looking like a real deal breaker. It seems like all the more advanced features need a connection to the cloud, which I really don’t like.
On the other hand we have the prusa which seems to be running really rushed software still missing a lot of features that the hardware should be able to support and the price looks like way worse value compared to the stuff you get with the bambu. At least it’s repairable and no cloud bullshit.
Should I just come back in a year and hope that the mk4 software has gotten better or the bambu doesn’t require internet for all the cool stuff?
Edit: Just woke up and I want to thank everyone in this thread for the quality replies! I’ll look into 3d modeling first and if the prusa doesn’t anymore have janky alpha input shaping 2-3 months from now I’ll go with that, otherwise I’ll have to look for alternatives. Since I’d be running prints throughout the day while I’m not at home, I’d want something more reliable than an ender 3.
Edit 2: I just found out about the Bambu p1s, I might just get that one.
Mate I dont own any of them, but open source is easy life. Prusa uses marlin afaik which is awesome and you can always change to klipper which is even better imo. Im in this hoby for 10+ years and prusa was always recommended by users. Bamboo looks amazing, but I wouldnt go for baby company with properary crap over big and famous prusa, the inventor of this kind of printers.
Also dont wait, just buy one. They didnt change that much hardware wise after adding heated bed. In my opinnion 3D printers are much better now compared to 10y ago, but 90% because of the community. Hardware is better, software is much much better, but community is what makes it rly good for new people. It means you can buy any popular device and you will get better support than any company can even imagine. Even better if you go open source route.
Whatever you chosey there are plenty of resources online including Lemmy, arm yourself with patience and enjoy the ride
Btw whats weong with mk4 software?
idk if it’s still the case, as I heard recently that they were close to merging it - but it shipped without input shaping, which was supposed to be a key feature of the mk4. Without it, it’s forced to run slower than it could otherwise. The good news though is that it’s definetely coming, so if you buy one today, you may just have to deal with slightly slower print times for a month or two before it’s out