Reviews
Printer reviews from machines I have actually used.
Every resin printer below is one I have owned and printed miniatures on, often for years. These reviews are the long-form companion to the comparison table on the buying guide: the honest verdict on each machine, what it gets right, what it gets wrong, and what I would buy instead today.
For the side-by-side comparison of every current resin printer, the resin printer buying guide carries the full table.
Review photograph
Environmental. Printer on workbench.Featured Review
Elegoo Mars 1 Pro
The Pro version of the original Mars. Charming in a museum sense, the printer that put a built-in carbon filter and front-facing USB on the entry-level resin shelf. None of that matters in 2026, when an $149 Mars 4 prints in a different league.
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Would buy: No
Elegoo Mars 2
The printer that made mono LCDs the consumer default. Before the Mars 2, fast cheap printing was a premium feature. After it, every competitor scrambled to catch up. Today it is a historical artefact with a better successor at the same price.
- The mono LCD was a genuine step change in 2021, reducing layer exposure times from roughly 8 to 10 seconds to around 2 seconds.
- Out of the box print quality was clean for the era, with very little light bleed and reliable first-layer adhesion.
- Build plate surface grips consistently, requiring far less re-levelling than the Mars 1 generation demanded.
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Would buy: No
Elegoo Mars 3 Pro
For a long stretch this was the printer I pointed beginners at without hesitation. 35 micron 4K pixels, tempered glass screen protection, and a carbon filter at a price that used to be the threshold for serious resin printing. The Mars 4 ended that run.
- 35 micron 4K screen brought genuine print quality to a price tier that had previously only managed 50 micron 2K resolution.
- Tempered glass screen protection is a real upgrade that protects a $60 LCD panel from the kind of resin spill that ruins a print session.
- Build volume of 143 x 89 x 175 mm fits 15 or more supported 28mm miniatures per batch, which was class-leading at this price when it shipped.
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Would buy: Yes
Elegoo Mars 4
An 18 micron pixel screen on a small tidy machine at the cheapest price the resolution has ever sold for. The Mars 4 is the printer I currently point first-time buyers at when they ask which resin printer to start with.
- 18 micron pixels at well under $200, which is the cheapest the resolution has ever shipped at
- Small footprint that fits on a normal desk without taking it over
- No smart features, no app, no cloud account, just the printer
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Would buy: Maybe
Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra
The same 18 micron pixel screen as the base Mars 4, with tempered glass protection, WiFi, ACF film, and .cbt slicer format support added on top. I would buy either version. The Ultra is the one to pick if anti-aliasing matters to you or if you want the screen protected.
- 18 micron pixels at $170, which is the cheapest serious miniature-grade resolution has ever sold for in a machine with this build quality.
- Tempered glass screen protector as standard: the single most practically useful upgrade over the base Mars 4.
- Supports the .cbt slicer format, which enables proper anti-aliasing in a way the base Mars 4's .goo files do not.
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Would buy: No
Elegoo Saturn 2
This was a beast of a machine when it came out in 2022. An 8K panel at 28.5 microns on a build plate large enough to print a giant in a single piece. I have been running mine for a long time. Today the Saturn 3 costs roughly the same and has finer pixels.
- 28.5 micron 8K screen brought a real step in detail quality to the large-format tier at a time when this combination was not available at this price.
- Build volume of 219 x 123 x 250 mm is large enough to print large monsters and terrain centrepieces without splitting parts across batches.
- Tempered glass screen protection as standard, which is a practical choice on a machine with an expensive LCD panel.
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Would buy: Yes
Elegoo Saturn 3
I am a sucker for a printer that is cheap and does the basics properly. The Saturn 3 is exactly that. No smart features, no speed gimmicks, just a 24 micron pixel screen on a big build plate at a price that is hard to argue against.
- 24 micron pixels on a large build plate at $230, which is the best resolution-to-price ratio at this build volume tier.
- Fans shut down when the printer is idle, which alone puts it ahead of several machines in the same generation.
- Tempered glass screen protection as standard, protecting the LCD panel from the kind of resin spill that ends a print session early.