Pros:
- $199: Pretty damn cheap for a very functional 3D printer
- Metal construction: Not laser cut wood which I question the strength and stability
- Toothed Belt (X, Y) and Jack Screw (Z) Movement: No crazy strings or cables. Looks professional.
- Heated Bed: Yes, a heated bed! This means you have a much larger selection of print materials (like ABS) other than PLA
- 1.75mm Filament: Standard size that you can get anywhere, cheap, many colors, many materials. You can easily get a 1kg roll of PLA for $20-$25.
- 0.1mm (and lower) Resolution on Z Axis: You can make prints with some nice detail.
- SD Card Slot and USB and WiFi: Printer includes a SD card (only 256M but good to start with)
- Standard Gcode Support: It can talk to many free and commercial slicers or read from the SD card
Cons:
- $199: Yeah. It's a deal but understand what you're getting into. You're going to have to fiddle with it and it may be frustrating. While many people have had success right out of the box don't assume you will. A $1000+ pinter might be a better choice if you have the money.
- Manual Bed Leveling: This comes under fiddling. You need to adjust the bed height using an allen wrench and a piece of paper (more on that later). The Z axis has a hard bottom limit switch so adjusting the bed height is very difficult.
- Low End Components: Again it's $199. The power supply is weak and might fail. The stepper motor drivers may overheat. The hot end is pretty poor. The bed heater struggles to get over 80 deg C. (low end for ABS). Wires can break (especially the thermistor) and bundles may abrade.
- Poor Construction: Tolerances can be pretty sloppy and manufacturing is not very consistent. Wobbling in all axises can occur. Mine seems to have loosened up since I got it.
- Proprietary Hardware and Software: You're not going to be able to flash it with an open source firmware or do any software customization.
- High DoA: There have been reports of DoA (Dead on Arrival) printers. This goes back to poor quality. Monoprice seems to do a good job with RMAs but it could be *extremely* frustrating.
The good thing is that many of the "cons" can be fixed or managed but this means that in addition to the hobby of 3D printing you'll have a hobby of hacking the printer itself. There is a great support group on Facebook and there are many great articles and videos online to help you out. My experience is that the community around this printer is excellent. Very welcoming and very helpful (and patience). Maybe it's because they're all facing the same struggles and celebrate their successes.
Part of my enjoyment with technology is hacking, modifying and tweaking it. So for me this is a great printer. I can fiddle with it but it still performs better than I expected.
