I've been burned having first bought a Kickstarter 3d printer that never showed up, then by a Wombot Modus (16"*16"*16" build volume) that's been mishandled bt the shipper (a forklift blade through the box bent it out of square - didn't see that until I signed the shipper's bill) and which was a hell to get 1st layer to adhere (and the general woes of a semi-working printer).

Now I'm wondering if I should either shell 500+CAD$ to make the wombot working without knowing if the result will be satisfying (something like making a new bed that can be leveled, Buildtak or other similar stuff, probably guide rails and general hardware to make the printer stiffer, moving from belts to leadscrews for the Z axis), or shell 1300CAD$ on a CR 10 MAX (which only lacks guide rails and probably don't need them). My Wombot is currently gathering dust in the basement. "Disappointment" is an euphemism in this case.

My sister bought a flashforge Creator Pro and she's very satisfied by this (small) machine. The print quality is there and it seems to be a very easy to use machine. It's her first 3d printer. Alas my ideas are in need of a bigger printer.

I've listened to Teaching Tech's 2-part review of the CR-10 MAX (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQOidpEoAsE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGYc-L6dmLE) and he might have hit a lemon, but he had a hell of a time to make his printer to print good quality prints (layer to layer adhesion issues, he had to tune the board's voltages somehow). His review prompted Creality to enable Merlin's anti-runaway features in the firmware, so now it's a better printer yet.

I also listened to SexyCyborg's review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skFo37IEkB0) which was somewhere in these lines ("needs a few tweaks"), but she had an early production model and it seems some have received a few upgrades since.

On the other hand, The First Layer's review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reLJZBLpdZM&t=1s) seems to imply that it can work pretty well out of the box.

Nexi Tech's review of the CR-10 Max is also a positive review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE9i1-DX1aI&t=293s).

I've also read a few reviews: All3dp's review is not very good, tobuya3dprinter's review is neutral.

So this far it's a pretty mixed bag of reviews.

Would the CR-10 MAX be a "printer that just works" like the Flashforge, good for a "semi-newbie"?