Bambu Lab has been slowly refreshing its entire line of 3D printers. There's the flagship H series, like the H2D, the midrange workhorses like my Editors' Choice winner the P2S, and the budget A series. One thing that seemed to be missing was a replacement for its original printer, the X1 Carbon. Its answer is the X2D, a thoughtful replacement for the X1C, with some interesting upgrades and a few compromises.

I've been using it for a short time, and while I have some first impressions, this is not a review. That will come after much more testing. Those first impressions are mostly positive, though I do have some initial trepidation. The Bambu Lab X2D is priced at $899 for the combo with the automatic material system ($649 without it), and is available now.

When it comes to the look and feel of the X2D, anyone who has used any of Bambu's 3D printers will be familiar. It's a fully enclosed machine made of metal, plastic and glass, and, like the P and H series 3D printers, it has excellent build quality.

The setup time was about 20 minutes, as I wanted to make sure the new parts were installed correctly, but it was a very simple process. Because the printer is the same size as a lot of Bambu's other machines, accessories like the Biqu Cryogrip build plate work perfectly with the X2D.

Compared with its predecessor, the X1C, the family resemblance is striking. The X2D is the dark charcoal color the company now prefers over the light gray, but everything else feels very similar. The X2D doesn't have the carbon rods the X1C used; it uses more traditional steel, which works for just about every other 3D printer.

The active filtering and airflow system from the P2S is present here as well, so those steel rods are less likely to get contaminated as quickly, though maintenance is always recommended. The biggest difference between the X2D and the X1C, though, is the number of nozzles. We get two on the new printer.

My first thought when I saw the X2D was that it was closer to the P2S with a dual nozzle setup than anything else. A P2D, if you will, but the manner of the dual extrusion matters here. Instead of having two nozzles powered by the same direct-drive print head, we have a main nozzle used with the AMS color system and an auxiliary nozzle primarily used to support the main extruder.

This support extruder uses a Bowden setup rather than a direct-drive system. Instead of having the cogs that grip the filament on the print head itself, a Bowden system places them farther away on the printer's body. Those cogs then push the filament through the tubing into the print head. This reduces the load on the print head, enabling higher speed and acceleration, but at the cost of material variety. You really can't push flexible filaments like TPU through a Bowden system.

This secondary nozzle seems to be trying to address two things: reducing waste and improving support for your models. By loading support material into the right-hand nozzle -- a material that doesn't stick to the main filament -- you can create much stronger supports that will peel away easily. I printed this Grace model from Project Hail Mary in PLA on the left nozzle and Bambu's "Support for PLA" material on the right.

Because the support material doesn't stick to the PLA, I could support the model fully without worrying about snapping parts off when it came time to separate them. This is something you can do with an AMS on other machines, but having two nozzles means far fewer material swaps and negates any concern about mixing those two materials.

If you aren't using a lot of supports, you can also use the second nozzle as just another color. It lets you use five colors instead of the four from the AMS. I printed this map with the main green color on the secondary nozzle, and the other less abundant colors through the AMS on the primary one. This significantly reduced the amount of filament changes needed and the waste produced, as the green was never swapped out. It stayed ready to print the whole time.

These tricks have been available on the H2D and H2C for a while now, but this is the first time they're available on the smaller-scale printers that Bambu Lab offers. The size and price difference make it compelling for those who don't have room for the giant machines.

I do have some concerns about the lack of TPU support. TPU is the most flexible material and, unless you use the TPU for AMS material from Bambu, doesn't really work well in the AMS or a Bowden setup. Other 3D printers have got around this by having a bypass on the back to allow TPU to be plugged directly into the print head, but this doesn't seem to be available on the X2D.

Using TPU with other filaments can create models with flexible joints, making it easier than ever to prototype wild ideas. The lack of TPU support seems like an oversight from the Bambu team, as consumers get more involved with TPU for printing shoes and other garments.

I still have a lot of testing to do, but Bambu's X2D seems to be a perfectly acceptable 3D printer. It will likely fit nicely between the H2D and the P2S in terms of price and usability. If you want the P2S size with the dual nozzle of the H2D, the X2D may be a good compromise.