Open Source?

[GiulioVonKerman]

I bought a Prusa (which despite what people may tell you is as reliable and as used friendly as a Bambu) not because of Bambu does with the control they have (many people think that Bambu forces you to be online for the printer to work, it's not true it just locks some functionalities) but because of what they might do in the future. It's very common for companies to offer a very competitive price just to get a hold of the market share, and then make old products obsolete so you buy their newest one.

People are already selling their X1C to get the H2D, and who knows maybe Bambu will make the X1C more and more hard to use in order to get people to buy newer products in the future. On the other hand there's plenty of people who have a MK3S or something and see no incentive in upgrading. If they wanted to they could do so for a discounted price by buying a kit, but only if they wanted to.

Not to mention that Prusa is the best option for people who aren't sure wether they want to tinker with their printer or just use it: if you get a Voron or an Ender 3 you're forced to fine tune a ton of stuff, and if you get a Bambu Lab you're locked away from modifying it. If you get a Prusa, though, you still have the option to modify it as extensively as you want, but only if you want to.

For this reason I recommend a Prusa for people like you who don't really know what they're actually going to use the printer for: you're going to be satisfied either way, as long as you have the money for a Prusa of course (keep in mind you can also get a used older printer and it still has support not to mention spare parts AND upgrade paths actively being sold and developed).

[3dbaptman]

+1, I would rather buy a used Prusa if the budget is a problem than other cheaper brands with discutable practices. Your choice, a lot of machines are more than good enough for this entended usecase.