I totally suggest the satin sheet if you’re only going to buy one upgrade for a prusa printer, I have a textured one that I do use sometimes with petg but the satin one is frankly amazing, abs and petg go down perfectly and self release when cold. No messing with glue sticks or anything, just set the z offset and go.

The build size is really the sticking point for me. You can relatively easily upgrade boards, drivers, extruders, etc, but you can’t just slap a larger print volume on the printer. If OP is fine with a 7" build plate, it seems like a good pick.

I wanted the larger build volume so I went with a Sidewinder X2 (300x300x400) as my first printer, but I’ve also dumped several hundred dollars worth of upgrades (aluminum build plate, magnetic sheets, upgraded fans, genuine BL touch, klipper, pi cam) into it and still encounter issues. Seems the market is still fractured where you can spend a lot to get decent quality parts with a small build volume, or spend a little to get crappy parts with a large build volume needing lots of upgrades almost right away. After about 1.5 years of experience, I’m dead set on getting a Core XY machine next to eliminate all the issues with the bed swinging back and forth at higher print speeds, but I’m in no hurry to buy a second printer.

The Ender 3 Neo comes out of the box with a bed leveler - that’s pretty much my go-to recommendation for someone getting started.

Yeah, if you actively like to tinker, the Ender 3 series will give you every opportunity. And sometimes will require it. xD (My 3V2 hasn’t really required it, but holy shit is it not stock anymore and I have learned a lot making it that way.)

Seriously though, the Ender 3 community and mods availability is unsurpassed. These things are truly the Model T of printers for both better and worse, and I’m glad I started here, it’s been educational as hell and that’s part of what I wanted. And it’s a bit of a hotrod at this point! Because I made it so. :D

I found the Ender 3 (pro, I think) perfectly good quality. It might be due to lack of experience with anything else

How long ago did you buy it? Ender 3 was a great budget printer when it came out, but things have changed a bit since then. After Creality got the reputation of making “the best printers for beginners” it appears that they started cutting corners everywhere to increase profit margins. Genuine Meanwell power supplies were replaced with generic Chinese parts, and manufacturing quality control sometimes appear to be non-existent. Now, many customers will be lucky, and get no severe issues that can’t be fixed with simple mods, but having spent quite a lot of time helping beginners on a 3d printing discord, I’ve seen my share of people spending days or weeks trying to calibrate their Ender, only to eventually realize that the printer itself has some issue. However if you live the US, Microcenter has been running campaigns with an E3Pro for $99. That’s a good deal even though I generally don’t recommend the brand.

The other thing that has changed is that the competition is much harder nowadays, and for the same cost as an Ender you can get a printer with better features. Don’t get me wrong though, there are no “good” cheap Chinese printers. It’s possible to get a bad unit that slipped through QC from any brand, and pretty much all models have some design flaws. My recommendation for anyone shopping on a budget is to find the “least bad” printer, or pay the premium for a genuine Prusa if they don’t want to deal with upgrades and mods to fix your printer.

Next thing to be wary of when shopping Chinese printers is brand loyalty. There are no brands that is consistent when it comes to printer models. A few brands might be worth avoiding due to anti-consumer practices, but most of them have made a few decent printers, and several bad ones. Don’t trust anyone claiming that one brand is good :)

Finally, many 3d printer manufacturers, including Creality, pay youtubers for “reviews”, some even go as far as scripting them. Even very popular channels, who are generally very knowledgeable about 3d printing, have been caught lying about brands that compete with their sponsor, ignoring flaws on the printer they’re paid to talk about, and/or rigging comparisons to come out in favour of it. There are also many fake review sites if you try to do your own research using Google. I.e. sites most likely written by a bot or someone who doesn’t know anything about 3d printing themselves, so they basically only repeat stuff from the manufacturer’s marketing info or copy from other sites. They can be difficult to spot for a beginner (I know I fell for them) but their goal is to make you click their Amazon affiliate links, not give you a fair review, so I think one thing they usually have in common is that all printers they list are somehow the best option for something.

I recommend people looking to buy their first printer check out this list. It’s maintained by users on the 3D Printing discord. They have first hand experience with multiple printers, they’ve seen what kind of issues people come asking for help with, and to my knowledge haven’t received any sponsorship money from any brand. Any rating is of course going to be subjective to some degree, but even if you don’t trust their “top picks” the list includes common issues and known flaws for the printers, so you can prepare for what you might need to mod or upgrade if you buy it.