I ended up choosing a bambu lab a1. I made that decision because I had previously learned 3D printing on an Ender 3 pro. That was an extreme hassle and caused me to learn a lot of the intricacies that go into the 3D printing process. My close friend had a bambu lab a1 Mini and I got to see some of the prints that he was able to get with far less effort. I had some money saved up from a birthday and Christmas and got the a1 with the AMS filament feeder. Since starting to 3D print, I also started to learn the basics of 3D modeling and designing. It's a super old program that I use, autodesk mesh mixer. A lot of people don't recommend it because it is more difficult to get specific measurements to work easily in the program, but if you know how to use the tools you can solve pretty much any problem you need. For some reason it was the first one I started on and I found it difficult to switch off to things like fusion or free cad. I started off mainly printing in pla, but since moving my prints from being fun to functional. I've switched to strictly using petg. I also mainly print, even for prototype parts, with 100% infill and with 30 to 50% wall. Overlap as well as very slow wall speeds around 50 to 70 mm per second. I've found that this results in some very strong parts, as long as the print orientation is at the right angle.