The Anycubic Kobra X is an excellent, entry-level four-color printer. The innovative ACE Gen 2 is entirely contained in the toolhead and works really well.
Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Do we need another Bambu Lab A1 clone, especially now that Core XY printers are more accessible than ever? The Anycubic Kobra X brings compelling proof that the bedslingers aren’t dead, not yet.
At first glance, the Anycubic Kobra X looks a lot like the Bambu Lab A1, with the same brushed aluminum gantry with both the Z-axis screws and Y-axis linear rods tucked out of sight. It has a similar build volume with a 260 x 260 bed plate, and a nozzle that can be swapped without tools.
But the big difference is the multimaterial system, the ACE Gen 2, which is built directly into the toolhead. There’s no external box. Filament feeds straight in from stationary top-mounted spools. Add an optional hub, and you can connect up to four ACE 2 Pro units for as many as 19 colors.
The ACE Gen 2 moves the filament cutter as close as possible to the nozzle, only 10 mm away. Filament only needs to retract 30 mm when changing colors, saving hours of time on prints with a lot of color changes. During testing, we ran the Kobra X head-to-head with its rival, Bambu Lab A1 . The Kobra X averages 35 seconds to swap colors from cut to purge, while our Bambu Lab A1 takes 90 seconds or more. These minutes add up. On a four-color print with 776 color swaps, the Kobra X was a shocking 10 hours faster, despite similar printing speeds.
The Kobra X is amazingly affordable, with an early bird launch price of $279, making this one of the best 3D printers we have seen in a long time.
Specifications: Anycubic Kobra X
Swipe to scroll horizontally Build Volume 260 x 260 x 260 mm (10.23 x 10.23 x 10.23 in) Row 0 - Cell 2 Material PLA/PETG/TPU/PVA/PLA-CF/PETG-CF/ASA (up to 300 °C degrees) Row 1 - Cell 2 Extruder Type Direct Drive Row 2 - Cell 2 Nozzle .4 hardened steel Row 3 - Cell 2 Build Platform Two-sided PEI coated flexible build plate Row 4 - Cell 2 Bed Leveling Automatic + Z Row 5 - Cell 2 Filament Runout Sensor Yes Row 6 - Cell 2 Connectivity USB, LAN, Cloud, App Row 7 - Cell 2 Interface Color Touch Screen Row 8 - Cell 2 Machine Footprint 455 × 445.3 × 461.3 mm (17.91 x 17.53 x 18,16 in) Row 9 - Cell 2 Machine Weight 9.5 KG (20.94 lbs) Row 10 - Cell 2 MSRP $399 ($279 Early Bird Pre-sale, Jan 15 to Feb 28) Row 11 - Cell 2 Initial Ship Date March 25 to April 5, 2026 Row 12 - Cell 2
Anycubic Kobra X: Included in the Box
... continue reading