Printer comparison
Creality Hi vs ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max
Compare hardware, build volume, printing specifications, dated prices and sources.
2 selected · all documented properties
Open these two in the interactive comparisonMore Creality Hi comparisonsMore ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max comparisons
| Property | Creality HiBEDSLINGER | ELEGOO Neptune 4 MaxBEDSLINGER |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | ||
| Brand | Creality | ELEGOO |
| Class | BEDSLINGER | BEDSLINGER |
| Identity & Market | ||
| Manufacturer & exact marketed model name (verify the exact product identity first) | Creality Hi, sold as the "Creality Hi Combo" with one CFS unit[1] | ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max[2] |
| Release date (announcement and actual shipping) | Not documented | Listed on the ELEGOO US store from 20 September 2023 (Shopify publish date)[3] |
| Street price (USD; dated snapshot per entry) | The Creality US store Hi Combo page lists three variant prices - $299.00, $399.00 and $539.00 - on the same page, Aug 2026; the lowest is recorded here and the combo includes one CFS unit[4] | $389.00 on us.elegoo.com, Aug 2026, against a compare-at price of $559.99; Ribbon-Cable and Type-C printhead variants are the same price[3] |
| Variants & sibling models — and how to tell them apart (spec-contamination risk) | Sold as a combo bundled with one CFS multi-material unit; up to four CFS units can be stacked for 16 colours, and the extra three are bought separately. Three price variants exist on the store page, so a single "Creality Hi" price is ambiguous[1] | Largest Neptune 4. The trade-off against the smaller models is easy to miss: the bed only reaches 85 C (against 100 C on the Plus and 110 C on the base Neptune 4) and acceleration is capped at 8000 mm/s2 (against 12000 and 20000), because of the mass of a 430 x 430 mm moving bed. Two printhead variants, Ribbon-Cable and Type-C, are sold under one SKU[2][5][6][3] |
| Physical & Frame | ||
| Build volume X×Y×Z (mm) — advertised vs actually usable | 260 x 260 x 300 mm[1] | 420 x 420 x 480 mm; printing platform 430 x 430 mm[2] |
| Machine footprint (mm) & clearance needed (cable/spool overhang) | 409 x 392 x 477 mm (Tom's Hardware measurement of the printer's footprint)[7] | 658 x 632 x 740 mm; ELEGOO's maximum size for machine activity is 658 x 950 x 960 mm including rack and tray - allow nearly a metre of depth and height[2] |
| Net weight (kg) | 11.58 kg (Tom's Hardware measurement)[7] | 18.1 kg net, 21.8 kg gross[2] |
| Frame construction & material | Full metal body with frame parts die-cast from aluminium alloy[1] | CNC-machined aluminium extrusion frame[2] |
| Enclosure: open / enclosed; panel material; door/lid | Open frame, no enclosure[1] | Open frame, no enclosure[2] |
| Kinematics & Motion Hardware | ||
| Kinematics (bedslinger i3 / CoreXY / other) | Not documented | Cartesian i3 bed-slinger[2] |
| Z-axis: leadscrew count & type, sync mechanism, anti-backlash | Not documented | Two lead screws with two tie rods[8] |
| Stepper drivers (exact model e.g. TMC2209; UART/SPI; sensorless homing?) | Not documented | "Silent Drive (All Axes)"; no driver part number published[8] |
| Speed & Acceleration | ||
| Max print speed (claimed, mm/s) | 500 mm/s max printing speed (manufacturer claim)[1] | 500 mm/s max toolhead speed (manufacturer claim)[2] |
| Recommended/typical print speed | Not documented | 250 mm/s recommended printing speed against the 500 mm/s ceiling (ELEGOO's own figure); default acceleration is 4000 mm/s2[8] |
| Max acceleration (claimed, mm/s²) | 12000 mm/s2 max acceleration (manufacturer claim)[1] | 8000 mm/s2 max toolhead acceleration (manufacturer claim) - the lowest in the Neptune 4 family[2] |
| Extruder | ||
| Type (direct drive / bowden) & design name | Modular direct-drive extruder, which Creality markets as clog-free and designed for repairability[1] | Dual-gear direct extruder with 2 fans[8] |
| Hotend & Nozzle | ||
| Hotend design (proprietary/standard; quick-swap mechanism?) | 0.4 mm high-flow hardened steel "unicorn" quick-swap nozzle[7] | Brass nozzle, 0.4 mm, with a titanium-alloy heat break[8] |
| Max nozzle temp claimed AND firmware max temp limit (both values) | 300 C maximum nozzle temperature (Tom's Hardware)[7] | 300 C claimed max nozzle temperature[2] |
| Heated Bed & Surface | ||
| Max bed temp claimed AND firmware limit | Not documented | 85 C max heated bed temperature at 25 C ambient - well below the 100-110 C of the smaller Neptunes, which limits ABS/ASA work despite them being on the compatibility list[2] |
| Bed surface (material, texture, coating), single/double-sided | Two-sided epoxy-resin flexible build plate, heated[7] | PEI spring steel sheet, now upgraded to a dual-sided textured PEI + PLA-specific surface; platform 430 x 430 mm[8] |
| Leveling & Z-Offset | ||
| Auto bed leveling: probe technology (inductive / strain gauge / load cell / touch probe) | Auto levelling, plus automatic filament load and unload[1] | Manual levelling combined with 121-point auto-levelling[8] |
| Filament Handling & Detection | ||
| Filament runout sensor (type, location) | Filament run-out sensor fitted[7] | Filament detection and power-loss resume printing[2] |
| Multi-material/multi-color capability or official upgrade path | Pairs with up to four CFS units for up to 16 colours; the combo ships with one CFS. Multi-material also enables snap-away support material[1] | Not documented |
| Electronics & Power | ||
| Mainboard model & MCU (exact chip markings if teardowns exist) | Not documented | "Klipper High-Speed Quiet Motherboard" is all ELEGOO publishes[8] |
| Input voltage (110/220 V, switch or auto) | Not documented | 100-120 V / 220-240 V, 50/60 Hz[2][8] |
| Total rated power draw | Not documented | 320 W rated power, 24 V output[8] |
| Firmware & Openness | ||
| Firmware base & current version (Klipper fork / Marlin fork / proprietary) | Klipper-derived firmware - Creality publishes the source as CrealityOfficial/Hi_Klipper on GitHub, GPL-3.0, last pushed March 2026[9][10] | Klipper[8] |
| Connectivity, UI & Camera | ||
| Display: size, type, touch? | 3.2-inch touchscreen, pre-assembled and foldable to shrink the footprint[1] | 4.3-inch colour capacitive touch screen[8] |
| On-device UI capabilities (model preview, per-object controls, etc.) | Touch UI with input shaping, alarm sounds and auto filament identification via the built-in RFID reader (needs Creality RFID filament)[1] | Colour capacitive touch UI; ElegooSlicer recommended, Orca and Cura supported[8] |
| WiFi (band/standard), Ethernet, USB ports, SD/flash-drive | USB, LAN, cloud and app[7] | Wi-Fi, USB and WLAN file transfer[2] |
| Calibration Routines & QoL | ||
| Assembly level & time from unbox to first print | 95% pre-assembled[1] | Not documented |
| Materials Support | ||
| Officially supported filament list | PLA and PETG (Tom's Hardware's materials line for the Hi Combo)[7] | PLA, TPU, PETG, ABS, ASA, Nylon - but note the 85 C bed ceiling against ABS and ASA[2] |
| Safety | ||
| Thermal runaway protection (verify in firmware source if at all possible) | Not verified directly. Creality publishes CrealityOfficial/Hi_Klipper (GPL-3.0) for this model; upstream Klipper ships the verify_heater thermal-runaway check, but the stock configuration was not checked here[9][10] | Not documented |
| Noise & Power Consumption | ||
| Noise: claimed dB and independently measured dB (distance/method) | Not documented | Operating sound published as 65 dB or less - a manufacturer figure with no distance or method stated[8] |
| Reliability, Support & Ecosystem | ||
| Warranty length & support reputation (evidence, not vibes) | Creality's US store states "Up to 12-Month Warranty", a 14-day return and refund window and "Lifetime Customer Support" on its printer product pages. The "up to" wording means the term is not uniform across parts[11] | 12 months on brand-new machines and parts, but ELEGOO's own table excludes a long list of parts from that: PEI plate / build plate / nozzle kit / PTFE tube / heater / thermistor / hot end / packaging / manual / tools carry no warranty at all, and the extruder, extruder kit and printhead kit get 6 months. Certified pre-owned machines carry no warranty[12] |
| Independently Measured Performance | ||
| Benchmark print times (source + settings) | Benchy in 32 minutes 33 seconds under Speed Boat Rules in ordinary grey PLA - independently measured by Tom's Hardware[7] | Not documented |
| Review scores from major outlets (list outlet + score + date) | Tom's Hardware rating 3.5 out of 5 in the page's structured data - the lowest score of any Creality machine recorded here[7] | Not documented |
Manufacturer claims, independent measurements, packages and test conditions retain their source wording. FDM linear speed and resin vertical speed use different units and are not directly comparable. Unknown values are marked “Not documented”. Prices and source dates remain historical snapshots; check the linked guide for product details. Differences highlight text, not a universal winner.
Sources for this comparison
- Creality Hi Combo product page creality.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max product page (Specification table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Neptune 4 Max Shopify product JSON (variant prices and store publish date) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- Creality US store - Creality Hi Combo 3D Printer product page (live prices for the variants) store.creality.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Neptune 4 product page (Specification table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Neptune 4 Plus product page (full specification table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- Tom's Hardware - Creality Hi Combo review (spec box and Speed Boat Rules Benchy time) tomshardware.com · 2026-08 · review
- ELEGOO compare-products page, which embeds the full per-model specification JSON for every Neptune, Centauri and OrangeStorm machine us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- GitHub API - CrealityOfficial/Hi_Klipper repository metadata (GPL-3.0, last push Mar 2026) api.github.com · 2026-08 · doc
- GitHub - CrealityOfficial organisation repositories (per-model firmware sources) github.com · 2026-08 · doc
- Creality US store - K1 3D Printer product page (live price, warranty and returns banner) store.creality.com · 2026-08 · vendor
- ELEGOO Refund & Warranty policy (warranty period table) us.elegoo.com · 2026-08 · vendor