Published Jun 16, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT Jeff's been involved in the IT industry since before the Internet and spent more than 20 years working in technical support, system administration, network administration, and consulting roles. He holds an undergraduate degree in English, a Master's degree in English with a focus on professional writing and editing, and another Master's degree in Computing & Information Systems. After teaching university English and computer science for a few years, Jeff launched his writing career . He's written for Macworld , Tom's Hardware , groovyPost , The Mac Observer , and more before beginning here at XDA. Budget 3D printers used to fight over speed, auto-leveling, and how little patience they could demand from a new owner. Those things still matter, but they’re no longer enough to make a printer feel meaningfully different. The basic experience has improved so much that a cheap printer can now be fast, tidy, and mostly painless without feeling unusual.…