Pros: - Anyone can set it up and start printing in 30 minutes or less.
- Makerbot's Thingiverse.com website is a fantastic community resource

Cons: First printer killed it's smart extruder after less than a week and technical support determined it was not homing correctly and must be RMA'ed. HOWEVER - you can not return/exchange the printer unless it is in the ORIGINAL PACKAGING which I had thrown away after the first few days when everything seemed to be working as expected. The whole RMA process takes weeks and really shouldn't need to be done in the first place if the machines were properly tested and packaged before shipping to the customer.

Other Thoughts: I would recommend buying a Makerbot over most other 3D printers however I warn you that it might be awhile until you can really start printing if you have to RMA.

Pros: Small.

Cons: Constant filament jams. No heated bed. Terrible quality output.

Other Thoughts: I urge you to consider a different 3D printer.

Pros: Worked Straight out of the box. Had to set it up, update the firmware, and printed a test print with no issues.
Print quality is pretty good, not perfect, but pretty darn good.
The ease of use, so simple my 6yr old can operate it (of course with my close eye on him).
Filament is cheap compared to other manufacturers who require you to purchase their proprietary filament which costs an arm and leg.

Cons: Price is pretty up there, but I was always taught you get what you pay for, so for my first 3d printer I wanted something decent, and so far I am very pleased with this buy.
I guess its loud compared to others, but I haven't really been around any quite 3d printers... I don't really have an issue with it, however it does produce some noise, so as long as you don't plan to sleep with it in your room while its running its fine.

Other Thoughts: I did a lot of research before buying a 3d printer. There are plenty out there on the market, Dremel, XYZ , the diy repraps, The Cube, and plenty others. Something kept drawing me back to MakerBot... i couldn't really find any reviews on the MakerBots, but the ones I did find were 50/50. It was either worst printer ever, or most amazing printer ever. And for the majority of the negative reviews, there was no context as to why it was a piece of junk, just that it was. After getting this printer up and running, I can see some people getting really frustrated and giving up (due to the fact that they failed to read all the directions/instructions, and failed to do the research on how the thing actually operates). I had a few human errors, such as loading the filament into the extruder before even powering the thing on(noob mistake, idk?), next thing I know is when its warming up to print its just spitting out filament... turns out, after you power it up and connect it to your pc, you click a button on the MakerBot Desktop software to tell the printer you need to load it, and then it tells you when to do so... I mean this thing is so simple to use, that i was making it difficult by assuming it was going to be somewhat user intensive, and have a steep learning curve. Turns out, just do what the software tells you, and use the software to tell the printer what you want, and it'll do the rest. So far I am very pleased with this buy, but wish the price wasn't soo high. But hey, now I have a 3d printer whats to stop me from printing parts to make another printer with bigger build volume. heh sooo awesome. love this thing, only reason it didn't get 5 stars is because of the price.