Wife wants to get me a 3d printer for Xmas. Which one?

[Housedad]

I am a fairly complete noob about 3d printing, but I have talked about the benefits of having one with my wife.  She said if I can find one around $500 that is worth a damn, she would be rather open to getting one for me for Xmas.  Happy days!

The only problem is that I don't even know what ones are decent out there for the price range, so I don't have an idea of where to send her.  From looking around the net,  I noticed some good reviews of the Crealty CR-10S, but I don't have a lot of time to figure this out completely for her to get this in time for Xmas.

What do you folks know about what is a good buy right now?  It would be nice to find something that will not be obsolete in a year,  and a brand that has a chance of being around for a bit. 

Thanks

[Calambres]

Ditto! 

[beanflying]

At that price point I love my CR-10S. It is built square easy to setup and works as claimed. Assembly circa 3 hours being careful. Have a trawl through this thread for some more info and some pics of what I have been crunching out https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/3d-printer-yet/

There is a bunch of lookalikes and clones of it around (some slightly cheaper) and plenty of BS reviews on Youtube to go with them from people who got freebies from Gearbest, Bangood etc. of all sorts of garbage they feel inclined to say nice things about to get the next freebie. So take ALL videos with a grain of salt.

You will need to go well up in $ to get a significant increase in quality or suffer a reduction in build volume and still be up on $$ (Prusa MK2 or 3 etc).

** Don't forget to get some filament with it PLA is great and a roll of PETG for a tougher more heat resistant print is worth it.