Originally Posted by Morelock

I bought a Monoprice Duplicator i3 (just a rebranded Wanhao i3) v2 - any of those rebranded prusa i3 models are a good place to start for people imo because the support group around them is very deep and they are relatively cheap. The Monoprices and Enders are usually pretty cheap.

If I was buying a printer today the list of things I'd want to answer
- What's the minimum build area I will accept (honestly, this isn't super important if you can do editing work as you can break larger files into pieces, still, a decent x/y and especially z height makes things easier
- has a heated bed (must have imo)
- Automatic bed leveling? (I upgraded to this a few months ago... it's not a must have, but it is a big quality of life improvement)
- Uses Marlin Firmware (a lot of the i3 variants use a Melzi board with Repetier firmware... it works, but down the road if you ever want to open up add ons / more control, you'll want/need Marlin and possibly an upgraded board - you can flash the firmware yourself, but it's a fairly drawn out process if you aren't familiar with arduino's)
- What filament do you want to print with (PLA is about what you're going to be printing out of the box on most things, for ABS you'll need a box to help control temperatures, and also likely an all metal hotend, to print very abrasive material you'll need a more exotic hotend)

I've also been playing with a resin 3d printer lately. It's another option for small parts (the build size x/y is roughly cell phone size) or if you want very high resolution details.