[thinker&planner]

At the risk of sounding like a company rep (I'm not in any way), I have to say that our Lulzbot Mini is amazing. I attend a separate school from my FRC team, and there aren't many people with much technical knowledge (yet). I use our two Minis for printing robot parts, and many other people use them to print random things from thingiverse.

It uses a modified version of Ultimaker's Cura as far as software goes, and there's an "easy" mode and an "expert" mode. The easy mode is literally just select the material, quality/speed, and click print. Expert mode has basically every setting that I have ever needed. The support material generator is amazing, because you can (usually) pull it out in one long piece.

As far as PLA goes, it prints flawlessly. With it's standard PEI surface and heated bed, there's no adhesion problems for PLA.

There's a pretty darn low learning curve, but it can also print almost any material because it has a full-metal hot end. It cleans itself.

At $1250, I am trying to convince people to buy me one for college (no success yet). The other great thing is that it stores and travels amazingly well. It has made many trips to my house and on robotics trips.

Lulzbot also sells the Taz, which is basically the same, but with a 11x10.8x9.8" build volume. In my experience, it's not quite as easy to use.

Sorry for a long post, but one more thing. My only gripe with the Mini is that it has to be plugged into a computer to print things, you can't load it onto an SD card and use your computer for other things. (More of an issue when I'm at home)