Entry level 3D printers?

[Telok]

To celebrate this year (CS degree, new career, job with a company that throws decent X-mas parties, etc.) I get to buy my first ever 3D printer. So I've been doing my research and kind of narrowed the field for my purchase but I would like to hear any suggestions or input from you guys.

The limits I'm working with are a budget of about $600 American or less and some free time. Technically I'm a programmer, I've designed small spaceships in Blender, and prefer UNIX based operating systems. My soldering skills are very rusty but I still have legos from three decades ago. The printer is going in the garage so noise and fumes won't annoy my wife. While I'm unlikely to exceed a six inch print any time soon I would like the option of both PLA and ABS but it's not a deal breaker. Detail and precision are slightly more important than reliability and speed isn't a concern.

The current prinyers I'm considering are the da vinci mini, creality CR10, and the monoprize mp select mini. What are your opinions?

[Peelee]

It's a bit above your ideal pricing, but I love my wife's Flashforge Creator Pro.

Also, congrats on the degree and career!

[Knaight]

The Taz LulzBot mini is about double your budget, but assuming you have 3D printer access (e.g at a library) that can drop. It's an open source 3D printer designed to be largely printable by a 3D printer, with all of the files needed to print pieces already there. The other pieces are sold directly, and all of this together should fit within $600 and some free time. The software is all free and open source.

I can confirm that it works too - the 3D printer lab at my university printed a bunch of Taz parts and used other Taz parts plus some extended rods to assemble a monster of a printer that works just fine, with dimensions of 6'x4'x3' or so.

[gomipile]

I have a Monoprice Mini. It's an excellent printer for its size. It also has a couple of friendly and helpful users groups on Facebook.

If I had $600 to spend on a larger printer to go with the Mini, I'd probably get a Prusa i3 MK2S kit if I had to spend the money right now. However, I'm not 100% solid on that choice, and I'd prefer to do some further research first. The Qidi dual extruder printer looks good for the money, for example.