My (slightly disappointed) summary after two years of owning a 5-tool XL
I had the 5-tool XL for two years now and my feelings are mixed.
It was my biggest invest in a hobby, ever. It is big, it is reliable, it prints pretty well. But honestly... all in all, I spent more than $5000 on that thing (including enclosure, bed sheets, nozzles and so on), and for that HUGE pile of money I did not expect anything less.
Then, there is the enclosure. Costing more than an entire multi-color printer elsewhere, it still looks and feels more like patchwork than a refined solution. Honestly, some 3rd party enclosures on Printables have evolved better.
I really expected more improvement and development by Prusa on their flagship, but got pretty disappointed in that regard. There seems to be a hard focus on the Core1 series now, which - understandably - is a lot more commercially successful. But I am afraid that with the arrival of INDX, the XL will get to become Prusas neglected ugly child even more. The fact that the XL was the last one of all Prusa models to get the 6.4 firmware finalized speaks louder than any official commitment can. As of now (2026/05), all other models have 6.5.3 already, XL is on 6.4.1. Go figure.
The fact that the Nextruder in the Core1 had 360° nozzle cooling from day one but the XL still has not, after years... well, you get where this is going.In the past, all Prusa Printers got a proper upgrade path instead of a succession of totally new and incompatible models. Seeing that the Core1+ along with INDX is probably better at almost everything except print volume, at a significantly lower price point, while I keep waiting in vain for even basic optimizations of well-known flaws just got me by surprise (unpleasantly so).
Some feature examples I would have expected in the last years are:
- a multi-filament storage solution below the printer with included drying and auto-winding
- improved (auto-winding) loading/unloading solution
- improved nozzle cooling (360°)
- improved enclosure with cheap upgrade path for existing customers
- a seamlessly integrated camera solution (the Core One came later and it already got one, for f*cks sake!)
The XL still is a really good printer, don't get me wrong. But all the above is also why I have problems shaking the bad feeling that I paid more than almost anyone else, and they took my money and used it to create the Core1, instead of improving the XL.