why go for the big name? bigger doesnt mean better. spend some time on the makerbot google group before you go that route. see what the people that own them have to say. imo there are far better printers at a better price point. that said though, if your a do it yourself person that likes to build things then the reprap is prob more for you. if not then there are alot of out of the box printers out there. now more than ever. there are atleast 2 new printers per day being posted on here.