I bought this printer 43 days ago. Here is my experience:

I had already found an unboxing video from Qidi, they have a YouTube channel so I was ready to get the printer up and running quickly. Out of the box, the video matched what I needed to do to set the machine up. I set the machine up and leveled the print bed. I was printing with the included filament within an hour. My prints were great. They did send me the wrong SD card as far as the files loaded on it. The SD card they sent me was for their other printer they sell. I emailed tech support and I had a link to the proper files within 24 hours. I did notice that out of the box this printer's light dimmed at times and there was a slight clicking noise coming from the printer. The prints were great so I thought this must be normal? Understand, this is only my second 3D printer and my other 3D printer makes a lot of noise compared to this one out of the box.

I continued to print with great results. I fixed the occasional jam.. re-level of the build plate.. nothing out of the ordinary. The clicking noise however did get louder. I contacted Qidi tech support and they were fast to reply. They had me send them videos of the noise and in return the sent me a video to try and see if it eliminated the noise. The steps did not fix the noise. They told me they would send me parts and instructions on how to replace the parts. I believe within a week+ I had the new parts and in the meantime I was still printing without much issue. The video they sent had some difficult steps to follow however I followed them and was able to replace the parts. The noise continued and the machine still had dimming lights. I emailed Qidi tech support and again the sent me parts to try and fix my problem. At this point in time the printer was having major issues. It would stop extruding plastic at the same layer height each print attempt and cause a jam that would wrap the filament around the gears inside the extruder. I tried both nozzles and different filament (even though the filament I had used successfully before still jammed) with no luck.

I received the new parts as of yesterday. Everything in the printer is working great again. The machine does not make any noise and the lights do not flicker. After the latest fix I am printing better than when I originally received the machine. I am including a picture of a small print I was unable to print before. This print is not cleaned up and straight off the bed. Also, the hulk I printed with this machine before the parts and repair but the boombox is after.

So with the time I spent with Qidi tech support and swapping parts with a new printer you may wonder why I don't rate a 1-3 stars instead of 4 (which will change to 5 if this printer continues to run well), their tech support, even through my frustration, continued to help me until the printer was working properly. I have to say, they stand by their product. There is a language barrier there, but I had no issues with the back and forth via email and videos we had to use. Simply put, they took care of me.

I will keep this review updated as I continue to use the printer.

Update (5.25.17): Putting the fixed machine through its paces and it is rock solid as of this writing. Updating the rating to 5/5.

My very first 3D printer and I must say. I am blown away by how awesome this is. No problems whatsoever with the printer. Excellent quality. I am using the makerbot software so I cant comment on the included software. What I can comment on is qidi techs customer service. I purchased my printer almost a year ago and recently moved cross country. In the process the plastic top cover for my printer was damaged. I wrote their customer service and Audrey replied to me within minutes and took care of my issue. I have printed tons of objects in my printer using Hatchbox ABS filament and love it. I am on thingiverse constantly looking for new stuff to print. I would not hesitate to purchase from qidi tech again. Excellent service!

This is my first 3d Printer and absolutely loving it! I admit, I'm addicted to printing!! I've been printing only in ABS (I really should try PLA soon) and have only had this printer for about 2 weeks. It is a learning process for me (a few bad prints and warped items, likely due to operator error) and I'm only using the MakerWare software included with the printer so far (though I hear Simplify 3D is ideal). I've printed tons of stuff so far, I'll include some pictures in this review. For instance, printed a new case for a Raspberry Pi 3b and touch screen to have a portable custom computer. Created/printed my own custom part for a friend that needed it for a costume. This printer can build anything you can imagine. Loving it! Install instructions are on the SD that was in the printer, be sure to get the SD card out and follow along the document and it will go smoothly for you.

I purchased this printer 3 weeks ago, it is my second 3d printer, the 1st one was a less expensive diy one. Big mistake, while I thought I was saving money with that one it cost more in the long run "trying" to get it going, nuf said- So I look very long and very hard for a new printer. And I must say I am not disappointed in this one! Not one curse word has come out of my mouth so far (huge step from the other one) I took my time setting it up, read everything twice. And I can say without a doubt I love this printer, it even loads the filaments for you, no more standing over it trying to stick it into the extrude again and again! I also purchased simplify3d for this and it all works like a champ. I would on every level purchase this unit again. Great packing job! Again can I say that in 3 weeks I have printer more than I did in 11 months with the other one! So do yourself a favor spend the extra bucks for this one rather than the lower cost "put it together yourself one". The only thing I can say about my other one is I can take it apart and put it together really fast now and know how it all works or does not work, a little too well.
It is a case of you get what you pay for - pay me now or pay me later. Again nothing but positive things to say about this unit, will add to this as time goes on but hope all future update are as good as this one. Oh yes the manuals are on the sd card as well as the software, So pull that bad boy out and look at those as soon as you unwrap the printer. PS while simplify 3d was a rather pricey piece of software, it has allowed me to do dual extrude printing in a snap, thanks to their wizard. And this printer, prints them wonderfully!
ALSO I would recommend getting some MEDIUM FILL MODEL GLUE for the lid- once I glued all the seams it help a lot the screws were not quite cutting it - now it is as solid as a rock.

Update- it is now feb-17-2017
and I can say without any hesitation that this printer was well worth every penny that I paid for it, it has been almost non stop since I got it- total of 1954 hours- lthat is 81.50 days - wow- have had a few jams but those are so easy to clear out - watch the youtube vidoe- I LOVE THIS PRINTER- I dont think I even got 3 days worth of printing out of the other one, which by the way has been sitting on the desk waiting for me to fix it for about a month now. you will not go wrong if you order this one (and I think the price dropped as well) I have not tried the really high end printers $$$$$$- but I am able to print some amazing stuff with one and will post photo in the future- if you are doing a long print job- more than 7 hours would recommend using sd card- since my windows machine sometime will reboot or loose connection with the printer- nothing to do with the printer- just windows- also don't forget to go into device manager and turn off the sleep function -or what ever it is call on all the usb ports- I mean all the usb ports- not just enough to do it in the control panel.

UPDATE- 4-5-17
6 month later and I still love this printer, it has been an amazing work horse- well worth every penny that I spent on it only downside is I wish I would have purchased this first and not wasted my money on the other build it yourself one, by the way still sits rather unused on the desk- I finally got it working more or less- but why waste my time with that one when I have this. Can not say enough good things about this printer

I work in a 3D printing lab for scientific research, and bought this for home. I was worried that it might annoy me since it only uses x3g files, and I do a lot of my own custom gcode writing at work, which necessitates an open-source format. Makerware's software sucks. It's come a long way in the past 2-3 years, but it still sucks. Simplify3D in my opinion makes this a competitive product, since it can directly convert to x3g format, and there is a lot more control over the settings, such as putting in a lot of my custom gcode scripts at each tool change, layer change etc.
As for hardware, it has a few upgrades over the Makerbot Replicator 2, which this is basically a knock-off of. The spool holders are nicer (though too large for a couple of my more exotic material filament spools... haven't gotten around to custom making something yet to accommodate this), there is a spring thing on the belts which I expect will let the belts last longer before needing to retighten them. There is a PTFE tube fitted in the heater and nozzle chamber. Often when you change materials, even with running material through at a lower temp, there tends to be a thin film deposited on the walls of the heated brass and gets stuck there. Eventually it degrades and may break off and clog the nozzle. I haven't used this printer long enough (got it about 2 weeks ago, running 20+ hours/day) to know for sure if this will help, but I think it will.

So, while iMakerbot spends all their time proprietarizing their software, these knock off companies are perfecting the hardware. We have 5 different company's FDM printers at work, and on the hardware side of things, this guy keeps up with them so far.

Also, the printer came with a few tools, like some wrenches and a scraper. I already had everything I need, but it is a nice startup kit for someone who doesn't already have a few dozen hobbies and residual tools around the house.

Edit after ~1 month:
The customer service is great! I have a few filament spools that did not fit their holders, and they sent their new upgraded ones for free, which arrived quite quickly (a week or so).

Also, I managed to find some smaller nozzles:
https://www.amazon.com/BIQU-Resistant-Threaded-Stainless-Extrusion/dp/B01IH5V9YK/
https://www.amazon.com/BIQU-Resistant-Threaded-Stainless-Extrusion/dp/B01IH5HZSE/
Use at your own risk, as smaller nozzles tend to jam more frequently, but often worth the risk with the increased quality on fine features! The Qidi replacement nozzles come with the PTFE tubes, which is really nice. These do not. But Qidi does not offer
I must say, the reliability of this printer is really great. All of the FDM printers I use at work cost $3-7k, and they require maintenance All.The.Time. This one I have done nothing other than a few mods to get ninjaflex to print, and inadvertently stripped a heater block (my fault) from switching out materials too often. No other maintenance at all. I've put about 650 hours on this already and it's still running like new.