3D Printers, Best Bang for the Buck?

Thought I would start a topic asking this very question. What is the best bang for the buck in consumer 3D Printers? This week we saw several printers announced by Makerbot and 3D Systems, as well as nearly daily have independent companies announcing 3D Printers. Are the big companies like Makerbot's new Replicator or the Cube 3 from 3D Systems the way to go, or can you save money without compromising specs and features by buying one of the lesser known printers.

If your Grandmom suddenly wanted the best printer out there under $3000, for the cheapest price, what would you suggest she buy?

I would have to vote for the Da Vinci which has just been released. It's only $499, and really is a pretty good quality printer that can do just about everything that most of the $1000+ printers can do. They are an unknown company that might help bring prices down in the entire industry.

More details at:
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...n-February-499

Well i didnt see the Da Vinci printing anything yet, But a Makerfarm is also actualy for the money a great printer,
Also Ultimakers are great if you wanna pay more.

What worries me the most about these less known brand printers is the fact that they could vanish at any time. With MakerBot and 3D Systems, we know they will be around for years to come regardless of how popular 3D printing gets. We know that their support team will always be availble, and replacement parts will be easy to come by. With the less known brands, we don't know for sure if they will still be around, in business, making printers and parts in a year or two from now (let alone 5 years from now). That scares me a bit.

I'll chime in with Printrbot. Very good printers for the price. The "Simple" is a good printer to get your feet wet with and there is a big community designing and posting upgrades for it. The Jr. and the Plus are very mature printers and are very highly regarded.