dan-p

1. Heated bed This is probably the feature I'm nost interested in as I need to print with ABS in the not so distant future. I also like that you've ditched the regular screws and gone for some thumb screws. 2. New hotend Besides looking way more complete/professional, it also seems way more durable. I wouldn't mind an upgrade for the original UM. 3. New extruder As Nicolinux wrote, this is also a very nice improvement. I haven't really had my original UM for a long time but I agree that less parts equals less risk of something breaking. 4. New case Just as with the rest of the UM2, the case looks very nice but as others have pointed out, I would really have preferred if it came with removable side panels. 5. New mechanics I don't have much to say about this except that I agree with Nicolinux that it would have been more future-proof to have placed the stepper motors on the outside so a heated chamber could be added later on. However, I don't think it will be a problem as very few will need it. 6. New controller I really like the new look of the controller but I still prefer the tilted version from the original UM as you may not always be sitting down when using the printer. Consider if it was being used by a company where many people would use it on a daily basis, then it would probably be located in a dedicated room for office supplies/printing equipment where people would most likely not be sitting down. 7. New stepper motor spacers A simple but nice addition to the UM2 is the new spacers for the stepper motors. A combined spacer is way easier to fit than having to fight with 4 individual ones. 8. Printer for everyone The "printer for everyone" statement is not yet valid. Usability has come a long way but you still need to work on the price tag. 1895 euros excl. VAT and other taxes is a bit steep for a regular family. I know it's still a fairly new technology in the consumer world but that doesn't change the fact that consumers are used to low price tags on printing equipment. Hopefully, companies will catch up and start buying a lot of printers which could lead to lower prices over time.

I would like to point out that it has kinda already been confirmed that upgrades like the heated bed will at some point become available for the original UM. As long as they keep releasing upgrades for the original UM, I won't really compare them to Makerbot. For most of us that assembled the UM ourselves, we paid 1194 euros for the kit and perhaps 80 euros for the controller. That leaves 621 euros for other upgrades before we reach the price of the new version. That's quite a bit of money for upgrades. I could easily make my UM run silent and add a nice heated bed for about 200 euros. That still leaves 421 euros for other upgrades, such as the new UM2 hotend (if it gets released for the original UM). The point I'm trying to make is that many owners will actually be able to buy a lot of upgrades before reaching the price of the UM2. Also, for those of us who buy a lot of PC hardware, we know that new products are released every 6 months. Unfortunately, that's how the market is but I still think that the UM team does a decent job in supporting previous products, kinda like AMD in the PC world. Even though I'm quite happy with my UM, I would still suggest that the UM team hints new releases a lot earlier. Hinting a release like 1 week before it becomes available is a bad idea, especially since a lot of new owners will become frustrated. You can still hint a release a lot earlier without releasing the details about it.

I think a lot of new V1 owners thought "damn" once the news was made available but as some of you have already pointed out, V1 is still a very nice 3D printer. I got my kit about a week ago and I actually had no trouble assembling it. The first print also went great thanks to Cura. What I do hope and which has kinda already been confirmed, is that V1 will be geting upgrades such as the heated bed. Sure, it won't be available right now but at least the V1 won't just be forgotten. I'm sure the Ultimaker team will work hard on upgrades once the V2 sales normalize. Anyway, I look forward to the new version and wish you the best of luck with the release.