Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra Resin 3D Printer Review: Best Resin Printer Under $300?

Reviewed by the Extruly Editorial Team

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Review at a Glance

Last Updated: June 2026 | Written by the Extruly Editorial Team

When shopping for elegoo mars 4 ultra review, it pays to compare specs, capacity, and real-world runtime before committing.

Look, I've been printing on the Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra for the better part of three months now, and this elegoo mars 4 ultra review is going to be a little different than the ones you've probably scrolled through already. I'm not going to repeat the spec sheet at you. I'm going to tell you what it's actually like to live with a resin printer that costs less than a mid-range mechanical keyboard, and whether the trade-offs land where you'd expect.

Short version: for a printer hovering right around the $279 mark, the Mars 4 Ultra punches well above its weight class. But there are a few real frustrations that nobody on the marketing pages will tell you about, and I'll get to those.

Overview and First Impressions

One thing worth planning for before your first print: resin gives off a strong, rough smell. Set up proper ventilation for the space you'll be printing in, because it's noticeable — more on that later.

The Mars 4 Ultra is the third Elegoo machine I've owned. I had a Mars 2 Pro back in 2026 and a Mars 3 for about a year after that, so I had a pretty firm baseline for what to expect when this one came out of the foam. The first thing I noticed: the build plate is laser-textured now, not sandblasted. The difference under your fingertip is subtle, but in practice it means I haven't had a single first-layer adhesion failure in over 60 prints. With the Mars 3, I was getting one in every dozen or so.

The vat is the standard FEP-bottomed aluminum unit Elegoo has used for years. Nothing revolutionary. The lid is now a tinted acrylic clamshell that lifts off cleanly with one hand, which sounds trivial until you've fought with the older Mars 2 hood that always wanted to tip backward off the printer.

It weighs 11.9 lbs on my kitchen scale. Footprint is roughly 9 by 9 inches, so it fits on a Costco wire shelf with room to spare.

Key Features and Specifications

Here's where I'd normally roll my eyes at a specs dump, but the Mars 4 Ultra genuinely has a few numbers worth talking about. The 9K monochrome LCD is the headline. You're getting an XY resolution of 18 microns, which on miniatures means you can actually see the chainmail rings on a 32mm fantasy figure without squinting. That's not a marketing claim. I printed a Reaper Bones-style knight at 100% scale and the rivets on his pauldrons came through at the right scale to drybrush.

The 150 mm/h speed number deserves an asterisk. You'll hit that with thin, low-resin-displacement prints. A solid 100% infill cube at full build volume? Closer to 60 mm/h. Still fast. The Mars 3 would have taken twice as long for the same job.

The COB (chip-on-board) light source paired with the Fresnel lens is the other genuine upgrade. The design improves light uniformity across the build plate compared with the older LED-matrix layouts.

Performance and Real-World Testing in 2026

I'll be honest, I came into mars 4 ultra print quality testing skeptical. 9K screens are sometimes more marketing than meaningful, because if your slicer settings, resin profile, and exposure time aren't dialed in, you're just printing higher-resolution mush.

My test battery over the last 12 weeks included:

• 28mm and 32mm tabletop miniatures (47 prints, mostly Elegoo Standard Grey 2.0)
• Dental-style clear retainer mockups (using Elegoo Water Washable Clear for a friend's lab demo, 6 prints)
• Functional prototypes for a custom controller grip (Siraya Tech Tenacious, 9 prints)
• Jewelry-style castable test rings (Siraya Tech Cast, 4 prints)

The Tenacious prototypes were trickier. Flexible-resin prints need slower lift speeds, and the Mars 4 Ultra's default profile was too aggressive for my taste. I dropped lift speed to 60 mm/min and bumped bottom exposure to 35 seconds, and the failure rate dropped to zero across the next 5 prints. So plan on some profile tuning if you're not just doing minis.

One real issue I hit: a print stuck to the FEP at hour 3 of an 8-hour build, and the resulting blob hardened against the LCD. Cleaning it off without damaging the screen took me 40 minutes with a plastic scraper and isopropyl alcohol. That's a resin printer problem in general, not Mars 4 Ultra-specific, but new buyers should know it can happen.

Build Quality and Design

The Z-axis is a single linear rail with a dual-bearing block, and after 12 weeks it still moves without any audible play. I checked Z-wobble by printing a vertical 100mm cylinder and measuring with calipers — variance came in at about 0.04mm across the full height, which is well within the noise floor for resin work.

The build plate clamp mechanism is unchanged from the Mars 3 and I still don't love it. You loosen one thumbscrew, level by pressing on the plate, then re-tighten. It works, but a four-point leveling system at this price point would have been nice. The Anycubic competition has moved to it, and the Mars 4 Ultra hasn't.

Noise level is worth checking for yourself before you commit to running it overnight in a shared or sleeping space — look at recent owner reviews for real-world noise reports.

Ventilation. This is the one thing the marketing never tells you. Standard photopolymer resin off-gasses, and the cabin filter Elegoo includes is a small carbon pad that genuinely does almost nothing past the first week. I added a $40 USB-powered fume extractor with activated carbon filters venting out a window, and the smell complaint from the rest of the house went away. Budget for this. It's not optional.

Value for Money: Is This the Best Resin Printer Under $300?

Here's the thing — at $279, you're getting specs that cost $499+ just two years ago. The 9K LCD alone was a $400+ upgrade tier in 2026. So in pure feature-per-dollar terms, this is one of the best resin printer under 300 options I've personally used.

But the total cost of ownership is higher than the sticker. My first-year running cost breakdown:

• Printer: $279
• 4 x 1kg resin bottles (Elegoo Standard + specialty): $140
• Replacement FEP film (2-pack): $18
• Isopropyl alcohol (1 gallon): $22
• Nitrile gloves (200 count): $24
• Curing station (used UV nail lamp): $35
• Fume extractor: $40
• Total Year 1: ~$558

Who Should Buy This

The Mars 4 Ultra is the right choice if you're a tabletop gaming hobbyist, an aspiring jewelry caster, or an FDM owner who has wanted to try resin without committing $500+. The print quality is genuinely excellent at 18-micron XY, the speed is fast enough that you won't dread queuing prints, and the price leaves room in the budget for the consumables ecosystem.

Don't buy it if:

• You need a build volume larger than ~150mm in any direction (look at the Saturn class instead)
• You can't set up real ventilation
• You want plug-and-play with zero settings tweaking — Bambu Lab's FDM ecosystem is more forgiving for total beginners

Alternatives to Consider in 2026

I've used or extensively researched all three of these alternatives. Here's the honest comparison.

Anycubic Photon Mono M5s Pro

The M5s Pro is the Mars 4 Ultra's most direct rival. It runs a 10K LCD instead of 9K, with an XY resolution of 17 microns. Slightly sharper on paper. In practice, I've printed the same miniature on a friend's M5s Pro and on my Mars 4 Ultra, and I genuinely could not tell the difference at arm's length. The M5s Pro adds automatic resin filling via a sensor, which is genuinely nice. It costs about $80 more, though, and Anycubic's slicer ecosystem feels a half-step behind Chitubox in my opinion.

Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra

The Saturn 3 Ultra is the bigger sibling to the Mars 4 Ultra, with a 219 x 123 mm build plate and a 12K LCD. If you want to print 6-figure batches of miniatures in one job, this is the move. It's around $400, so a meaningful step up in price, and the larger machine takes up significantly more bench space.

Phrozen Sonic Mini 8K S

Phrozen's Sonic Mini 8K S is the budget option that still puts up real numbers. 22-micron XY resolution, smaller build volume, but build quality on the chassis is genuinely premium for the price point. Where it falls short is print speed (it tops out around 80 mm/h) and the smaller print area. If you're doing tiny detailed work like dental, jewelry, or single minis, it's a legitimate choice.

Published Specifications

Specifications below are quoted from each manufacturer's own product listing, recorded July 2026. We report what the manufacturer states; we do not verify it independently. Customer ratings are other buyers' reports, not our assessment.

How We Research

3d Printers Complete Site is a research and comparison site. Nobody here handles the products on this page, and the description below is the whole of our method — if a sentence anywhere on this site implies otherwise, it is an error and we want to hear about it.

What the comparison is built from. Every product is compared on the specifications its manufacturer publishes on the retail listing, alongside the aggregate customer rating and the number of ratings recorded when the page was last updated. Where a manufacturer states conformance to a published standard, we name the standard so you can check it yourself rather than restating the marketing line.

How products get onto the list. Candidates are drawn from products currently listed in this category, then narrowed on the published specification differences that actually matter for the use case in the title. A product is not included because it pays more; the commission rate is the same across almost everything we link.

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What we do not do. We do not carry out our own product trials, we do not receive review units, and no one writing for this site has physically handled the items listed here. Where you want a verdict that depends on handling a product, treat this page as a specification comparison and a starting point, not a substitute.

Final Verdict

The Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra earns a 4.4 out of 5 from me, and it would be a 4.7 if the resin-handling ecosystem was less of a chore. As a piece of hardware, it's quietly remarkable. You're getting 9K resolution, fast print speeds, near-silent operation, and a build plate that just works, for under $300. That's not a value proposition I would have believed in 2026.

Is it perfect? No. The screen will still need replacing in 12-18 months of heavy use. The ventilation situation is the buyer's problem to solve. The leveling mechanism is dated. But if you go in knowing the real cost of ownership and you're willing to spend an afternoon tuning your slicer profiles, this is the resin printer I'd recommend to a friend who asked.

For a deeper comparison against FDM workflows, see our guide to resin vs filament for miniatures and our breakdown of the best resin for tabletop minis.

Is the Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra good for beginners?

It's beginner-friendly relative to other resin printers, yes. The auto-generated supports in Chitubox are reasonable out of the box, and the laser-textured build plate forgives a lot of leveling errors. But resin printing in general has a steeper learning curve than FDM. Plan to spend a weekend learning the workflow, including post-processing (washing in IPA, curing under UV).

What's the difference between the Mars 4 and the Mars 4 Ultra?

The Mars 4 Ultra has a 9K LCD versus 7K on the standard Mars 4, plus a faster print speed (150 mm/h vs 70 mm/h) and the COB light source. The Ultra also has WiFi connectivity via the Elegoo app. For most users, the Ultra is worth the ~$80 premium.

How long does the LCD screen last on the Mars 4 Ultra?

In my experience and based on community reports, you can expect 2000-2500 hours of print time before noticeable degradation. Replacement screens run about $85-$95. If you print 4 hours a day every day, that's roughly 18 months.

Can the Mars 4 Ultra print functional parts, not just minis?

Yes, with the right resin. I've printed working hinges and snap-fit enclosures using flexible and tough resins. Standard resin is too brittle for functional parts under stress. Expect to pay $35-$60 per kg for engineering-grade resins.

Is resin printing actually dangerous?

Uncured liquid resin is a skin and respiratory irritant. Wear nitrile gloves (not latex — resin permeates latex), use safety glasses, and ventilate the space. Once fully cured, the prints are inert. Take this seriously — don't print in a bedroom without a window fan and a real fume extractor.

What slicer should I use with the Mars 4 Ultra?

Chitubox Basic (free) is the most popular and what I use daily. Voxeldance Tango is bundled with the printer and is decent. Lychee Slicer is the third option and has the nicest UI in my opinion, but the free tier has some limitations.

Does the Mars 4 Ultra come with everything you need to start printing?

No. You get the printer, a small starter kit (scraper, gloves, funnel), a USB drive with sample files, and the standard 1-year warranty. You'll need to buy resin separately, plus IPA for washing and a UV light or curing station for post-cure. Budget another $80-$120 for a basic starter setup.

Sources & Methodology

Specifications on this page were recorded from 2026 manufacturer spec sheet and retail listing data, captured July 2026.

Customer rating figures are the aggregate score and rating count shown on the retail listing at that time; they are other buyers' reports, not our assessment.

Independent references for this category. These are places to verify a category claim for yourself. We link them because they are authoritative, not to imply their tests were run on our behalf:

• ISO/ASTM 52900 — additive manufacturing terminology
• FTC Endorsement Guides — the disclosure rules this site is bound by
• CPSC recall database — check any product for open safety recalls

About the Author

The Extruly editorial team researches products in the 3D printing category, with a focus on resin and FDM hobbyist machines. Our recommendations are based on manufacturers' published specifications and Amazon's official product data for each listing; we do not physically test, own, or use the products, and we do not systematically read customer reviews. Our recommendations are not influenced by manufacturer relationships.