Before we delve a little deeper, you may be thinking to yourself that the Monoprice Maker Select Plus looks uncannily like a couple of other 3D printers currently on the market. And you would be right. The Monoprice Maker Select Plus is a white label rebadge of the Wanhao i3 Plus 3D printer (and shares many characteristics with the Anycubic i3 Mega). They look the same, print the same and, save for the branding and boot screen logo, are the same.

At the time of writing Monoprice lists the Maker Select Plus at $399.99. For that money you get a fused deposition modeling style 3D printer, which deposits layer after layer of melted plastic filament, gradually building up a model over time.

An evolution on the Monoprice Maker Select V2 (which is itself a rebadge of the Wanhao Duplicator i3 V2.1 — so that logically follows), the Maker Select Plus takes the external control box of its predecessor and integrates it beneath the print bed. The result is a similarly capable 3D printer within almost half of the footprint.

The print volume remains the same as the Maker Select V2 at 200 x 200 x 180 mm. One notable difference between the two however is the claimed increase in print speed of the Monoprice Maker Select Plus.

Monoprice cites a 50% increase in print speed to 150mm/s, but we suspect most users won’t be able to get anywhere near this and output quality prints. Vastly increasing print speed throws up all sorts of problems that require a multitude of settings adjustments to accommodate — and even if those could be dialed in, chances are you won’t be printing anything large enough for the printer to be getting up to that speed before making a direction change. Basically, advertising such high print speeds is marketing fluff.

Like many of the full size Prusa i3-style machines (including the Maker Select V2), the Monoprice Maker Select Plus boasts a direct drive extruder. This means all the action of pulling the filament into the hot end happens directly on the print head (another reason to be wary of such high speed printing claims — the print head will be heavy).

Also new to the Monoprice Maker Select Plus over its sibling is the addition of a touchscreen interface, sited on the front of the printer’s base.

On the right hand side of the frame you’ll find a USB connection for online printing and an SD card reader for offline printing.

The Monoprice Maker Select Plus itself comes in two main pieces: the standing frame with print head gantry, and the base complete with heated bed already attached. Both are securely stowed in foam cutouts, with an accessories box, USB cable and sandwiched between.

To help users get up and running in no time, a variety of tools and accessories come bundled in the box.

• Spool holder
• Sample spool of PLA filament
• 8GB SD card loaded with a Monoprice customized version of Cura, PDF manual and four test print g-code files
• Hex keys for the Monoprice Maker Select Plus assembly
• 0.4mm nozzle cleaning tool
• USB cable

Thinking of picking one up? The Monoprice Maker Select Plus is available from the retailers below.