Bambu Lab P2S Review — 11 Months In: The Hits, the Waste, and One Dead Extruder
This printer made a retirement gift out of twenty-seven cities. I printed 3D maps of the places a coworker had visited — each tile stamped with the city and the year he was there — and that project tells you almost everything about owning the Bambu Lab P2S. I bought mine in November 2025, the eight-hundred-ninety-nine-dollar combo with the AMS. Eleven months in, here's the full, honest take.
The Basics
The basics first — these are Bambu Lab's specs. The P2S is an enclosed CoreXY printer with a 256-millimeter cube build volume, a hardened steel nozzle, and a quick-swap hotend. The combo's AMS 2 Pro holds four spools, feeds them automatically, and actively dries your filament. There's a five-inch touchscreen, a chamber camera for monitoring and timelapse, and AI print-failure detection that's supposed to catch a failing print before it becomes a mess. Remember that part.
Why I Picked It: Friendly and Quiet
I picked this printer because of the great reviews and how user-friendly it is — and on that, it delivers. Most days it's dead simple: pick a model, send it, walk away. It's quiet, too. I can sit in the same room and be on calls while it runs — Bambi is not a printer you have to hide in the garage.
The Bambu Handy App
The Bambu Handy app is fantastic. I can check in on a print from my phone, or even start one when I'm away from the printer. The timelapse feature is cool, even if I don't use it much. Honestly, half the time I just watch it work — it's relaxing, almost satisfying, watching a print take shape layer by layer.
Print Quality: Filament and Drying Matter
Print quality is great for the most part, with two conditions. Use quality filament — I recommend Bambu Lab's own. And dry your filament as recommended; the AMS drying isn't a gimmick, it shows in the finished print. I run mostly PLA, with some PETG and ABS. One safety note if you print ABS or TPU: run an air purifier or vent the room.
What I Print
A lot of what I print comes from MakerWorld — it has tons of free models, which is half the fun of owning this thing. The other half is creating your own products in 3D modeling software — dreaming something up and holding it in your hand the same day.
The fun stuff? Whiskey display boxes from a MakerWorld design (model 1705865): six plates, about three hours total, and they make great gifts. If you want to sell them, pay for the license so the creator gets credit. I've printed piles of key chains and bag tags for my daughter's cheerleading team — the megaphone bag tag is another MakerWorld model, personalized with each girl's name and number.
And the city maps — six-by-six-inch squares of everywhere the retiree had been, over twenty-seven cities, each with its year, made with a tool called map2model (the site has since shut down). St. Augustine three times. Las Vegas three times. Plaques stamped with the city and the year of the visit — that project alone justified the machine.
The Honest Part
Now the honest part. Filament gets stuck sometimes. Prints get cancelled because a part won't stick to the bed. Multi-color prints look amazing — and produce a shocking amount of purge waste; that's the AMS tax. And the AI failure detection? Once, it missed. I came back to a huge blob of a mess on the extruder and basically had to replace it. That one hurt.
The lesson eleven months taught me: maintenance is important. Keep the plate clean, keep up with the machine, and don't treat any printer as truly set-and-forget. And one more downside to know going in: a lot of the P2S's features live inside Bambu Lab's walled garden — their slicer, their app, their cloud. There are workarounds if you search around the internet, but out of the box, you're playing in their yard.
Buying tip: keep an eye on Black Friday pricing; that's when I grabbed mine.
✅ Pros
- Genuinely user-friendly — pick a model, send it, walk away. It earned its reviews.
- Quiet — I can sit in the same room and be on calls while it runs.
- The Handy app is fantastic — check in on a print, or start one, from anywhere.
- Great print quality — with quality filament, and the AMS 2 Pro's active drying shows in the finished print.
- The fun factor — MakerWorld's tons of free models, plus modeling your own products.
- Gift machine — whiskey boxes, personalized cheer bag tags, and a 27-city retirement gift.
❌ Cons
- Multi-color purge waste — the AMS tax is real.
- Jams and bed adhesion — filament gets stuck sometimes, and prints get cancelled when a part won't stick.
- The AI detection missed once — a blob on the extruder, and I had to replace it.
- Walled garden — a lot of features live in Bambu Lab's slicer, app, and cloud (workarounds exist).
- Maintenance matters — keep the plate clean and keep up with the machine.
The Verdict. Eight out of ten. The P2S earned its reviews — fast, friendly, quiet, and capable of genuinely great gifts. Two points come off: one for the waste and the sticking-and-jamming headaches, and one for the day its own failure detection didn't.
That's the P2S — Bambi, as we call her at home.
Bambu Lab P2S FAQ
Is the Bambu Lab P2S good for beginners?
I picked the P2S because of the great reviews and how user-friendly it is — and on that, it delivers. Most days it's dead simple: pick a model, send it, walk away. Eleven months in, it's the printer I'd point a beginner at, with one warning: maintenance matters. Keep the plate clean and keep up with the machine, and don't treat any printer as truly set-and-forget.
How loud is the Bambu Lab P2S?
Quiet. I can sit in the same room and be on calls while it runs — Bambi, as we call her at home, is not a printer you have to hide in the garage. Between the low noise and the Bambu Handy app, it's an easy printer to live with day to day.
How long does a whiskey box take to print on the P2S?
The whiskey display box I print — a MakerWorld design, model 1705865 — is six plates and takes about three hours total, depending on the model. They make great gifts. And if you want to sell them, pay for the license so the creator gets credit.
Does multi-color printing on the P2S waste a lot of filament?
Yes — that's the honest trade. Multi-color prints look amazing, and the AMS 2 Pro makes them easy, but every color change purges filament, and the purge waste adds up to a shocking amount. I call it the AMS tax: budget for it when you plan multi-color projects.
What filament should I use in the Bambu Lab P2S?
Print quality is great for the most part, with two conditions: use quality filament — I recommend Bambu Lab's own — and dry your filament as recommended. The AMS 2 Pro's active drying isn't a gimmick; it shows in the finished print. I run mostly PLA, with some PETG and ABS. And if you print ABS or TPU, run an air purifier or vent the room.
What happens when the P2S AI print-failure detection fails?
I found out the hard way. The P2S has AI print-failure detection that's supposed to catch a failing print before it becomes a mess — and once, it missed. I came back to a huge blob of a mess on the extruder and basically had to replace it. It's one of the two points that came off my score.
Note: This review is based on my own Bambu Lab P2S Combo, bought in November 2025 for $899. The printer photos in the video are Bambu Lab's official product imagery; the whiskey box and city maps shown are my own prints. The narration is an AI voice.
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