Make magazine not only provides amazing geeky projects, it also takes a lot of time to provide great information about products.  Recently they conducted their Digital Fabrication Shootout.  This is their fourth year doing this, and this year they expanded their shootout from 3D Printers into the areas of CNC mills, laser cutters, and vinyl cutters.

The winner of the overall 3D Printer category was the LulzBot Taz 5.  The Taz5 is provides a printer area of 298mm x 275mm x 250mm, a top printing speed of 200mm/sec, and terrific print quality.  However, it does come with a hefty price tag of close to $2200, as listed in the makershed.com.

Of course since I run a PrintrBot, I was curious to see if they made the list.  The PrintrBot Simple Metal took second place in the ‘Best Value’ category and first place in the ‘Most Portable’ category.  The new PrintrBot Play also took third in the ‘Best Value’ category, first in the ‘Best for Schools’ category, and third in the ‘Most Portable’ Category.  Congratulations to PrintrBot on a great product.  I am still extremely happy with my choice of the PrintrBot Simple Metal as my first printer.  The LulzBot Taz 5 is looking pretty nice in the future though… of course in addition to my PrintrBot.

You can see all the results at Make:’s Digital Fabrication Shootout.