Bambu Lab A1 Mini Combo, A1 Mini 3D Printer&AMS lite, Multi-Color Printing

Why it's worth it

This compact printer calibrates itself, prints in multiple colors with the included AMS lite, and goes from sealed box to first print in about twenty minutes. It turns a vague interest in making things into a Saturday of actually making them.

The setup is the gift. Older printers asked you to level a bed with a sheet of paper and then chase warped first layers for an hour. The A1 Mini handles bed leveling, Z-offset and flow calibration on its own in minutes. Bambu puts first-print setup at about twenty minutes, and owners describe unboxing it and printing the same evening. That matters when your recipient is excited on the day and busy all the week after.

Picture the drawer in their place with the broken bracket, the cable clip that snapped, the knob that fell off the stereo. Those are the first things people print. The build area is small, so nobody's making furniture here. But for enclosures, jigs, replacement clips and hobby parts, it covers most of what an engineer wants to make at home.

From our review of 8 gifts for engineers

What we like

• +The setup is the gift
• +Picture the drawer in their place with the broken bracket, the cable clip that snapped, the knob that fell off the stereo
• +The AMS lite in this combo feeds four spools and swaps colors mid-print
• +It's quiet enough to live in a normal room

What to know

• –It's open-frame, so it's limited to PLA, PETG and other easygoing filaments
• –Reliability isn't flawless