I just received one of these for review from Amazon Vine, and your review is spot on. I had a lot of fun playing with it, and my neighbor's kids will have even more fun when I give it to them, but I wouldn't recommend anyone actually buy it, especially at the price. The software is really the best part of this little toy printer, and I'm hoping they'll enjoy it at least until I get something better to give them . . . but I'm worried that they'll get bored with it too quickly, so I'm glad it didn't cost me anything . . .
I’m kinda jealous. I did beta testing on their software with the impression I’d get a printer to actually use it. At least I got to make some neat toys I couldn’t export to my other printers. Haha
Yikes to this printer. Why would any sane person buy this when the A1 Mini exists and actually has the ease of use that truly makes 3d printing accessible rather than the gimmicks with partially functional "apps" etc. Just give a kid access to tinkercad, and for any premade models makerworld is already tightly integrated. What's more, the limited capabilities of these machines ends up meaning that unlike something like an A1 mini where the creativity of actual users can grow and the printer will be able to support them the whole way, this, when you quickly hit its limits you just have to buy a different printer. The kicker is that it costs 25% _more_ than an A1 mini. I seriously feel that all of these little _childrens_ 3d printers are marketed towards unsuspecting parents who don't realize how lacking these are and assume that these companies will do a decent job making these devices easy to use. Very unfortunate for all the kids who end up with something like this and who I imagine would get a much better and more educational experience with a proper printer. No printer marketed towards younger demographics should require levelling of any kind, nor should they have clearly defective settings requiring children to constantly deal with things like rafts with sharp little pieces and budges, nor should they be using wasteful setting such as rafts because they should just have heated beds which they could more than easily do at this price point. I feel like the entirety of the value add of this printer is the app with relatively easy to modify toys, but thats only so useful (because there is a very slim length of time where premade prints could be useful to kids as they are young enough, but they are old enough to be trusted to handle a 3d printer), and could be sold as the software itself. That just cant be worth so much compromise with the printer itself though. They really should just sell the kits and the app separately and abandon printers entirely imo.
The A1 doesn't have this software, and that's really where the value is. You get an A1, you're on you own for what you want to do with it. You get this, and you get a summer of activities. Now, I will agree, the A1 is remarkably well priced. And if AOSeed wanted to get out of the hardware game and into the 3D modeling activity game, I think they'd really have something.
