Bambu Lab P1S Review: Best Enclosed Printer Under $700?

When Bambu Lab launched the P1S, the 3D printing community had a collective moment of disbelief. An enclosed CoreXY printer with auto bed leveling, input shaping, a 256 x 256 x 256 mm build volume, and optional 4-color AMS — for under $700? Either the specs were exaggerated or Bambu Lab was playing a different game entirely.

After three months of daily printing — over 400 hours of total print time, 22 kg of filament consumed, and exactly 3 failed prints (all user error) — I can confirm: this is the real deal. The P1S has fundamentally changed what I expect from a 3D printer at any price, let alone under $700.

Speed: The Headline Number

Bambu Lab advertises 500 mm/s maximum speed with 20,000 mm/s² acceleration. Those numbers are technically achievable, but here's what actually matters: real-world, high-quality print times.

A standard benchy at 0.2 mm layer height with the default "Standard" profile: 17 minutes. For reference, the same benchy on my tuned Ender 3 V3 takes 55 minutes. On a stock Prusa MK4S: about 38 minutes. The P1S is roughly 2-3x faster than traditional printers in real-world use — not just on straight-line moves, but in actual complex geometry.

The "Ludicrous" speed mode pushes speeds to 500 mm/s with 20,000 mm/s² acceleration. At those settings, the benchy drops to under 15 minutes, but quality takes a noticeable hit — visible ringing on corners and some layer inconsistency on overhangs. I run "Sport" mode (300 mm/s, 12,000 mm/s²) for 90% of my prints. It's the sweet spot where speed and quality intersect.

How does that 500 mm/s capability actually affect your print time estimates? If you're used to predicting print times on slower machines, you'll consistently overestimate on the P1S. Our article on why slicer print time estimates are wrong explains why — and the P1S makes that gap even wider because its acceleration is so much higher than what most slicers assume.

The Enclosure: More Than Marketing

The P1S is the enclosed version of the P1P (which is the same machine without panels). That enclosure isn't just dust protection — it's the reason you can print ABS, ASA, and polycarbonate blends without warping issues that plague open-frame printers.

With the panels on and a 20-minute preheat, the chamber reaches 40-45°C passively (no active chamber heater). That's enough for ABS. For PC, you'd want to add a makeshift cardboard lid to push temperatures toward 55°C, which is a common community modification.

For PLA, the enclosure is actually a problem. PLA needs active cooling, and a hot chamber reduces the cooling differential. I remove the front panel and top glass when printing PLA. It takes 10 seconds and makes a noticeable quality difference — better bridging, sharper overhangs, less heat creep. Bambu Lab actually recommends this in their official wiki.

Print Quality: Surprisingly Good

Fast printers typically sacrifice detail for speed. The P1S minimizes that tradeoff through excellent input shaping. An accelerometer mounted on the toolhead measures resonance frequencies, and the firmware compensates in real time. The result: clean corners at 300 mm/s that would be ringing disasters on a non-tuned machine.

At 0.2 mm layer height in Sport mode, surface quality is comparable to a well-tuned Prusa MK4S at 70 mm/s. At 0.12 mm layer height in Normal mode (150 mm/s), the quality exceeds what most hobbyists need. Miniatures at 0.08 mm with a 0.4 mm nozzle look genuinely impressive — though at that resolution, the speed advantage shrinks because the bottleneck is heat transfer, not motion.

Dimensional accuracy is strong. My calibration cubes consistently measure within 0.05 mm of target on X and Y, and within 0.08 mm on Z. That's well within tolerance for functional parts, snap fits, and mechanical assemblies.

AMS: Multi-Material Done Right

The Automatic Material System (AMS) is a $349 add-on that gives you 4-spool capability. It feeds filament to the printer through a long Bowden tube from a separate humidity-controlled box. Color changes take about 20 seconds including the purge.

Unlike the Prusa XL's toolchanger system where each tool has its own independent hotend (zero purge waste), the AMS uses a single nozzle and a purge tower. That means multi-color prints waste 10-30% more filament for the purge operations. On a 4-color print, I typically see 15-20 grams of purge waste versus near-zero on the XL.

The tradeoff is price: P1S + AMS totals about $1,050. A 2-toolhead Prusa XL starts at $2,199. For hobbyist multi-color work, the P1S/AMS combo is the clear value winner. For production multi-material (mixing PLA with TPU, or using PVA supports), the XL's independent toolheads are the better solution.

Noise Levels: The Enclosure Helps

At Normal speed (150 mm/s), the P1S measures 48 dB at 1 meter — comparable to a quiet office. At Sport mode (300 mm/s), it climbs to 56 dB — noticeable but livable in the same room. At Ludicrous mode, 62-65 dB — you'll want it in another room or behind a door.

For comparison, a typical Ender 3 (even the "silent" V2) runs at 50-54 dB during normal printing. The P1S in Normal mode is actually quieter despite being 3x faster. That's the advantage of a properly enclosed CoreXY with linear rails — the noise stays contained.

How It Compares

Against the Prusa XL: The XL wins on build volume (360 x 360 x 360 mm vs 256 x 256 x 256 mm), multi-material sophistication, and open-source cred. The P1S wins on speed, price, and enclosed printing. They're not direct competitors — the XL is a prosumer production machine, the P1S is the best consumer all-rounder.

Against budget printers like the Elegoo Neptune 2S: Completely different leagues. The Neptune 2S is $200 and excellent for learning, but the P1S prints 3-4x faster, handles more materials, requires zero manual calibration, and just works out of the box. If your budget allows $700, the P1S is a generational leap forward.

The build volume of 256 x 256 x 256 mm sits in the standard tier. If you're wondering whether that's enough room for your projects, our build volume guide has the full breakdown by size category with real-world examples.

What's Not Great

The P1S isn't perfect, and the downsides are worth knowing:

Cloud dependency. Bambu Lab's ecosystem runs through their cloud servers. You can print via SD card and LAN mode, but firmware updates, remote monitoring, and the full Bambu Handy app experience require cloud connectivity. If their servers go down (it's happened twice in my 3 months), you lose remote features. Not a dealbreaker, but worth noting if you value fully offline operation.

Proprietary parts. The hotend uses a Bambu-specific design. You can't drop in a standard V6 nozzle. Replacement hotend assemblies are $30 and readily available, but you're locked into Bambu Lab's ecosystem for that component. The build plate, nozzle wiper, and PTFE tube are all standard, though.

No LED light bar. The P1P has a built-in camera with LED lighting. The P1S has the camera but no LED. You're printing in a dark enclosure. A $5 USB LED strip inside the chamber is basically mandatory.

The Verdict

The Bambu Lab P1S is the best enclosed 3D printer under $700, and it's not particularly close. It prints faster than machines twice its price, handles PLA through ABS with minimal tuning, and the optional AMS makes multi-color printing accessible to hobbyists for the first time.

If you're upgrading from an Ender 3, a Neptune, or any bedslinger-style printer, the P1S will feel like jumping forward five years. If you're buying your first printer and can afford the $700, skip the $200 options entirely — the P1S will keep you happy for years instead of months.