Yes, those 2 do seem to be winning the battle, the Makerbot, just seems to be lacking for that hefty price tag. Yeah, the Ultimaker warranty is kind of scary. I tried to find out if I could get a Squaretrade (third party) warranty for either the Ultimaker or Zotrax, but I wasn't given a clear answer. I called twice and spoke to two different people... the first told me that because the MFR is international they wouldn't be able to cover it, the second told me that it would be covered. I'll need to wait and speak to a supervisor to be certain.

Definitely about the PLA... if it doesn't print PLA then I'll have to pass. I'm also unsure about it's positional precision. 1.5 microns doesn't seem possible, especially for XY, so I'm going to assume it's completely false. I do like the price though. The filament size for the UM really bothers me though... being in the U.S, it's not very popular / abundant.

Nice video on the Zotrax, it does seem really loud though.