Can you really get a decent one for under £500? I'm not convinced. 😏
No.
I see.....but you could just be saying that cause you wanna be the only 3D printer in town 😄
Anything in the home/hobby price range is flawed in some way.
And I suspect that lots of people here have one
I have a £110 (2 years ago) Anet A8 (High precision model), which has well known flaws, including allegedly bursting into flames (which it wouldn't if put together properly). But it has other issues as well - non insurmountable, and many can be fixed by printing some uprated parts, including braces, belt tensioners and filament guides. But by far, by a country mile, its most serious issue is the very, very, VERY poor way of insulating fingers from the incoming mains - its lethally utterly shite. Again, printing a proper cover resolves the issue.
I find it to be a brilliant bit of kit. But like every similar printer, its not a item that you can just plug in, use, unplug and chuck in the cupboard for next time device. Every time its moved it needs the bed relevelling (auto leveller is a £10 add-on, but will never overcome the issues with an unlevel bed), every few months it needs all the screws retightening, the Z axis reset and so on.
As said, there isn't anything that is set and forget in the hobby price range that is versatile enough to be useful.