(Image credit: Anycubic)

Bambu, Prusa, and Creality are the usual household names in the 3D printing world, but there's no shortage of alternative makers trying to upset the status quo. Anycubic just announced the Kobra X, an affordable multi-filament, multi-material 3D printer that the company claims can print twice as fast while spending half the material of its competitors — all for just $259 for early birds who preorder the machine.

The Kobra X's main claim to fame is its purge reduction system. By reducing the distance between the cutter and the nozzle by half and bringing the retraction distance down from 160mm to 30mm (compared to the extant Kobra 3 v2), the system can theoretically print two to three times as fast and with just half the material. This comes by way of the head spending far less time "pooping" and more time printing.

Additional niceties including auto resuming prints in the event of a power outage, automatic calibration according to flow and vibration, and even bed heat distribution. Should all of these features pan out as predicted, the Kobra X would have a leg or two up the Bambu A1 and similar models. The print volume is 260 mm³.

• January 15 to February 28: $259, or $279 without a deposit.
• March 1 to March 31: $279, or $299 without a deposit.
• Afterwards: $399.

Preorders placed until March 31st also get 50% off a four-pack of filament rolls, and $50 off an accessory bundle. 3D printers have massively come down in price and improved in reliability these past few years, so we're only happy to see one more competitor on the field. Thankfully, printers are far less likely to be affected by DDR5 pricing shenanigans, so the price drops should continue.

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