These days you can get an entry-level 3D printer for a very reasonable price. And I'm not talking about a kit printer that you have to put together over the course of the weekend, yet utterly frustrated, burn yourself with a soldering iron, and start wondering if you had chosen the wrong path in life – I mean things that can work right out of the box.

The Monoprice Select Mini V2 is one of the best reviewed and best-loved small format, out-of-the-box 3D printers that I can think of. You can pick one up for under $230 USD, have it shipped to you, open it up, put it on the table, plug things in, feeding the filament, and be printing one of the test objects in only a little more time than it takes to tell you about it.

Personally, I decided to go with the Monoprice Mini Delta when they were in their Kickstarter phase, mainly because I wanted to be sure to actually get my hands on one. They are supposed to be releasing some more stock with the second wave design changes from their early adopters (like including a cooling fan underneath for the control board) during the holiday season. Hit the website, keep an eye on things, and maybe you can get another one of the good entry-level predators for under $250 USD.

If an assembled system is still too rich for your blood at that price point and you feel up to the challenge of assembling an entire printer from kit form, you can find prices as low as $150 USD on some pretty decent printers.

The 3D Printing Professor just put out a video talking about "what 3D printer should I buy" in the last couple of days. Let me dig that up for you.

There's no reason that you shouldn't be able to get your hands on one – or to persuade Santa that you have been terribly good this year and deserve the ability to make physical items out of nothingness! Or at least that's how I justified it last year.