I have a Basic GF, my friend has a Plus.
Difference? 5 watts
I loaded up an SVG, sent her the same one… we both sized them the same way, same settings.
We hit print
Mine said 1 hour 39 mins print time
Hers said 1 hour 39 mins
The plus is advertised to print 2 times faster… I was thinking of upgrading but why would I upgrade to the Plus for that much more money for zero difference in print time??
IMO the Plus doesn’t have enough going on to be considered. Either Basic or Pro, forget the Plus exists.
I did the same thing with tiles. I ran one at my house, but I found out the library had gotten a Pro. I went to the library and ran the same tile there. I think there was only about a minute difference max in time (I remember thinking the difference wasn’t enough to take notice). The only major difference was the library’s vary power left a much deeper engrave with the same settings (on full power, that makes sense). I went home thinking that a passthrough and improved cooling would be nice, but I was happy with my Basic purchase.
I thought the Plus and Basic are now both 40W? You have to go to the Pro to get 45W. It just has an upgraded motion system that would really only help with some engraving settings if I recall correctly.
Plus is also 45W…or at least it was when i was buying my Basic.
You’re right, I just checked, it says 40W now. I swear I read it was 45W a two years ago.
They changed it to the 40W close to a year ago I think. Just has an upgraded motion system over the basic now.
Yeah, I was just searching the forums and found it. I don’t think I was reading the forum much back then because I was still really focused on learning which design program I wanted to use…I ran 3 programs simultaneously back then so I could try to learn them all and figure out which was the easiest for me…It was a headache. 
The extra 45W didn’t seem worth it back then. Now that the power is the same I can’t for the life of me understand the price diff other than the extra warranty. The speed difference is really only useful in low power situations where you can bump up the speed.
It’s only faster under certain circumstances. We all could have told you to skip the Plus entirely. It’s not worth the extra $.
that extra power isn’t particularly useful for engraving. it’s more effective for cutting.
I have the Plus, but I wish I went for the Pro. When I bought it, the Plus was supposed have a better cooling system too. I also read that it had 45W laser, but found out after I got it that is was really only a 40W.
I can’t speak for the techs of the difference since I just got my plus a week ago. Reason I went plus was availability. They said 2 week delivery, 4 weeks later it got here. So if we look at it like that and the Basic is on backorder with a 2 month delay, I don’t know 6 months in real time maybe?
Yes, with the same settings, the systems will perform the same.
The Plus has faster engraving capabilities than the Basic, and the Pro faster than both. That engraving speed only increases for raster graphics (loaded individually or embedded into a SVG or PDF) at this time: they beta tested it with vectors as well, but it had a few issues, so presumably they are trying to fix that.
As far as cutting, the 45w units will cut about 20% faster. This is directly reflected in the Proofgrade settings for the different systems.
I don’t believe the Plus was ever advertised as having better cooling. When I ordered my Pro (way back in the preorder period) it was only the Pro that was advertised as having enhanced cooling; that was one of my main reasons for going Pro.
The early Plus units did have the same 45W tube as the Pro. It was sometime in 2019 that they changed the Plus to use the 40W tube.
I agree about the cooling, but there was no Plus during preorder. That came later.
I ordered my basic while it was on a 1 month backorder and I did receive it early. I received it roughly 3 weeks after I ordered it.
That being said… I am not ordering a plus just because it would be here in 3 weeks vs 2 months.
I bought the plus thinking it was bigger and better. But to find out that i paid 1500$ more for a basic but with the name of the plus. Please someone tell me what the obvious difference is and i will test it with my friend. Because i feel like i have been tricked.
$1500 difference for 4 week shipping vs 2 months? Yeah, thats a waste of money.
Thankfully I purchased the Basic and I love my basic, but for business needs I now need a second laser. Wanted to test the basic vs plus, just to find out my friend kinda got screwed by purchasing the Plus thinking it was faster and better than the Basic