Nozzle & SpoolWhich printer to buy, what it'll really cost, and what to avoid.

Anycubic Photon P1

Published · Researched 2026-09-21

This is the printer the file slot was researched for — the Photon Mono M5s Pro has been superseded, and the Photon P1 (Kickstarter December 2025, shipping since January 2026) is Anycubic's current mid-size pick. At $499 on Anycubic's US store, it's a 10.1" 14K machine that traded speed for consistency — and the reviewers who tested it think that trade was the right call.

The P1 is a prosumer MSLA printer: 13,312 × 5,120 pixels, 16.8 × 24.8 µm, a 223 × 126 × 230 mm build volume, an industrial ball-screw Z-axis instead of a leadscrew, a heated resin vat (20–40 °C), pressure-sensor Auto-Leveling 3.0, Wave Release film, Wi-Fi with app control, and a built-in camera. The lineup context matters: in 2026 Anycubic split its resin range into the new Photon P1/P1 Max family and the older Photon Mono M line. The M5s Pro (14K, ~105 mm/h, heater + purifier) and the M7 Pro (14K, up to 170 mm/h, heated vat, auto refill) are the previous generations — still sold at some retailers, often at clearance pricing, but the P1 is the current recommendation.

What's genuinely good: reviewers are unusually aligned. TechRadar gave it 4.5/5, logged a 100% success rate across 20+ prints, and called it "by far the best desktop resin printer Anycubic has produced to date." 3dwork.io (updated September 2026) called it "the best resin printer Anycubic has ever released," citing the ball screw, milled steel build plate, Wave Release film, and heated vat as genuine engineering upgrades over the M7 Pro. FauxHammer — who are not easy to impress — said it's "the closest Anycubic has come to the M3 Premium's sensible, enthusiast-friendly appeal in years" and a better recent experience "than the M5 line offered." The hardware tells you why the verdicts land there: a ball screw is a reliability decision, not a speed decision, and the heated vat turns resin temperature from something you manage (stir, warm, hope) into something the machine handles. Cold-garage printing without the ritual is the feature owners of older Photons keep circling back to. There's also a genuinely unusual party trick — an optional dual-material print kit (~$30) that runs two colors or two resin types in a single job, something nobody else in this price class offers. How many owners actually use it is unverified — no uptake data surfaced — and the review circuit adds a friction note: changing between materials means more cleanup, and Anycubic's slicer support for the dual workflow is still maturing. As a cheap experiment for multi-color modelers, it's unique; as a workflow, expect teething.

What's actually wrong: first, the speed. At 25–35 mm/h on standard resin, the P1 is four to five times slower than the M7 Pro's headline 130–170 mm/h. Anycubic traded speed for consistency, and that trade is the whole machine: if you print batches on deadlines, this is not your printer. Second, the "prosumer" marketing overreaches — FauxHammer's review makes the gaps concrete: the Auto-Leveling 3.0 is pressure-sensor assisted, not magic; the ball screw is C7 grade, not C5; and a wavy layer over the screen slightly softens the very finest detail. Early units shipped with a lid that let too much UV through and an optimistic max-fill line; both were fixed in running changes (darker lid, corrected vat markings), but buying from older stock is a small gamble. Third, the perennial Anycubic problem: aftercare. FauxHammer puts it plainly — "Anycubic's aftercare track record is not among the best in the industry" — with slow tickets and replacement parts shipping from China. The P1's design helps you help yourself (accessible boards, quick-release screen mount, standard consumables), and the large owner community is an effective informal support channel, but factor in the timezone friction.

There's also a data gap worth stating honestly: the P1 has no visible owner community yet. This research pass found no Facebook group owner discussion and no Reddit threads for the P1 — the verdict is built on professional reviews and YouTube owner reviews, not long-term ownership reports. Nobody has published the 2,000-hour P1 story. What we do have is the previous generation's long-term data: a legacy M5s Pro owner posted in September 2026 about a ~2-year-old, 1,500–2,000-print-hour machine developing random black spots during an exposure test with no physical surface marks — suspected LCD damage before buying a replacement. A Space.com review of the M5s cited monochrome LCD life around 2,000 hours. That is M5s Pro evidence, not P1 evidence — don't apply it directly — but it's the shape of what the P1's screen will eventually face, and the 3-month-ish LCD warranty norms in this class mean the screen is a consumable you're renting, not owning.

Then the standard resin realities: nothing prints without post-processing, so budget the Wash & Cure 3 Plus ($150) or 3 Max ($299) on top — Anycubic's own store offers them as P1 bundle add-ons. Ventilation, nitrile gloves, IPA handling: the P1 changes none of that. Skip this if you print big batches on deadlines — speed is a real feature for some people — and skip it if you need a machine that levels itself perfectly without thinking, because you'll still be thinking about leveling.

The social pulse: the P1 is beloved by the review circuit and argued about nowhere yet — there's simply no owner community visible for it, which is a real gap, not a good sign or a bad one. The shape of the debate is reviewers saying "best Anycubic ever" while gently deflating the marketing ("prosumer clothing," per FauxHammer). It reads like a machine that earned its reputation through print results rather than hype — TechRadar's 100% success rate is a test result, not a press release. The legacy M5s Pro conversation is livelier but older: ACF film nicks, over-adhesion, slicer workflow errors, and now the 2,000-hour LCD wear reports.

Value call: MSRP is $699, but the actual street price observed in September 2026 was $499 on Anycubic's US store (up to $689 on other storefronts) — and that $499 was promo pricing, so re-verify before you buy. At $499, a 14K machine with a heated vat and ball-screw Z undercuts the M7 Pro's $669 launch price while beating it on reliability. The legacy M5s Pro at $579 on Anycubic's official store is the clearance alternative — but it's the previous generation, and buying it now means buying into the 2,000-hour LCD wear curve with older hardware. Against the Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra 16K ($399, faster, bigger owner community), the P1 is the reliability pick and the Saturn the automation-per-dollar pick. The dual-material kit at ~$30 is a cheap experiment if you print multi-color models.

The P1 is the printer Anycubic's 14K line was always supposed to be — slower than the marketing says, better than the marketing promises, and worth it at $499.

anycubic photon mono m5s pro — photo 01
anycubic photon mono m5s pro — photo 02
anycubic photon mono m5s pro — photo 03
anycubic photon mono m5s pro extra — photo 01
anycubic photon mono m5s pro extra — photo 02
anycubic photon mono m5s pro extra — photo 03

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