Creality Ender-3 V4 Combo.

The Gavler Review.

Creality Ender-3 V4 Combo Review: Bambu-Style Multicolor for $399

The Creality Ender-3 V4 Combo ranks number 9 on Gavler's Best 3D Printers list with an 8.3, and it answers a question that's been open since Bambu Lab made multicolor printing mainstream: is there a genuine $400 alternative to a Bambu A1 Mini Combo? Tom's Hardware's take on the structural rework gets at why the answer is yes — "The unibody gantry eliminates frame squaring problems entirely and arrives pre-squared. That alone changes the Ender 3 buying experience." Buy it if 16-color printing at a budget price is the actual goal and PLA/PETG covers your material needs. Skip it if your projects need engineering filaments or an enclosed, heated chamber — this machine was never built for those.

What it is

The headline feature is the bundled Creality Filament System (CFS) — Creality's answer to Bambu's AMS — supporting up to 16 colors via four chained CFS units, with automatic filament changes handled mid-print. Multicolor printing was a $1,000-plus feature on Bambu's X1 line two years ago; the V4 Combo brings it to budget territory without the obvious corner-cutting reviewers expected. Fabbaloo called it "Creality's most ambitious entry-level printer — high-speed FDM, automatic bed leveling, and the Creality Filament System for multicolor printing, all in one box."

The second story is structural, and it's arguably the more important one for anyone who's owned a prior Ender. Creality replaced the classic three-piece bolted gantry with a U-shaped unipiece aluminum gantry that ships pre-squared and pre-aligned — eliminating the frame-truing ritual that defined the first hour of owning every Ender 3 that came before it. Combined with input shaping, automatic Z-offset calibration via a strain-gauge sensor, and a rated 500mm/s print speed, the spec sheet is competitive with machines costing two to three times as much.

In use

All3DP's framing captures the practical value case well: "Genuinely impressive for the price, especially if you want multicolor printing without spending Bambu Lab money. More beginner-friendly than any Ender-3 before it." The pre-squared gantry isn't a marginal convenience — it's the removal of the single biggest early-ownership frustration in the entire Ender line's history, and it shows up immediately in the unboxing and first-print experience.

The trade-offs are specific and worth taking seriously before buying. The hotend handles PLA and PETG with reasonable success, but exotic engineering filaments — PA-CF, PETG-CF, ABS in any real volume — are outside this machine's design intent. The chamber is open, the hotend caps at modest temperatures, and there's no enclosed environment to manage ABS warping. The CFS also adds meaningful per-print time on heavy color-change jobs, since every filament swap flushes the hotend, the same tax every AMS-style system pays. Hackaday's summary is the right filter to apply before buying: "If multicolor printing is your goal and you don't need engineering filaments, this is the printer to buy at $399."

Strengths

• 16-color multicolor printing at $399 — a feature that cost well over $1,000 on flagship machines two years ago, now genuinely accessible at budget pricing.
• Pre-squared unipiece gantry eliminates the frame-truing step that has frustrated Ender 3 owners for a decade, cutting real setup friction on day one.
• 500mm/s rated speed with input shaping and automatic Z-offset calibration — a spec sheet that competes with machines two to three times the price.

The trade-offs — who should skip it

• You need engineering filaments. PA-CF, PETG-CF, and volume ABS printing require an enclosed, heat-managed chamber this open-frame machine doesn't have — look at the Bambu Lab H2S or a comparable enclosed printer instead.
• You care about resale value. Reviewers and the used market consistently note that Creality machines depreciate faster than Bambu equivalents — a real consideration if you plan to upgrade again in a year or two.
• You print heavy color-change jobs regularly. The CFS flushes the hotend on every filament swap, adding meaningful time to prints with frequent color changes — plan around that if your projects lean toward complex multicolor work.

How it compares

One rank up on the list, the Anycubic Mono Photon M7 Pro is a completely different printing technology — 14K resin rather than FDM — worth knowing about if detail resolution matters more to your projects than multicolor capability; it trades the V4 Combo's color range for dental-grade surface detail on miniatures and jewelry work.

One rank down, the Creality Ender 3 V3 SE is the V4 Combo's simpler sibling — the same pre-aligned build philosophy at $199, without the Creality Filament System. It's the right call if multicolor printing isn't actually the goal and you just want a reliable, low-friction single-color printer.

The Gavler verdict

An 8.3, with an 84 expert consensus and 85 community rating that agree closely — the scoreNote notes that "reviewers including Tom's Hardware, Fabbaloo, and All3DP highlight the unipiece gantry and bundled CFS as the value differentiators," with material limits noted but not treated as deal-breakers. That's the right framing: this is a printer built for a specific job — budget multicolor printing on PLA and PETG — and it does that job better than anything else near its price. For makers who want speed plus color without Bambu money, the V4 Combo is the pick of 2026.

Common Questions

Is the Creality Ender-3 V4 Combo worth it in 2026?

For buyers who want multicolor printing on a budget, yes. It ranks 9th on Gavler's Best 3D Printers list with an 8.3, and All3DP called it 'genuinely impressive for the price, especially if you want multicolor printing without spending Bambu Lab money.' The trade-off is real: it's a PLA-and-PETG machine, with no enclosed chamber for engineering filaments.

How does the bundled Creality Filament System (CFS) work?

The CFS is Creality's AMS-style multicolor system — up to four chained CFS units support up to 16 filament colors with automatic filament changes mid-print. Fabbaloo called the V4 Combo 'Creality's most ambitious entry-level printer,' combining high-speed FDM, automatic bed leveling, and the CFS in one $399 package.

Creality Ender-3 V4 Combo or the standard Ender 3 V3 SE?

Buy the V3 SE if you just want a reliable single-color printer at the lowest possible price. Buy the V4 Combo if multicolor printing is the actual goal — the bundled Creality Filament System is the entire reason to pay the extra $200, and it's not something you can add to the V3 SE later.