Cricut Explore Air 2 - A DIY Cutting Machine for all Crafts, Create Customized Cards, Home Decor & More, Bluetooth Connectivity, Compatible with iOS, Android, Windows & Mac, Mint

I have had this machine for almost a year now, and I confidently say, THIS MACHINE SUCKS IT REALLY IS TERRIBLE DO NOT BUY IT I dont understand how they have such a high rating. Since I mostly wanted it for sticker cutting purposes here are the reasons from that perspective why this is an awful machine. First off old problems: 1. The machine never calibrates well. Even if you calibrate it, everything cuts nicely for the first few (like 1) pages only. Progressively, it gets worse and worse and you have to recalibrate it AGAIN and AGAIN wasting paper. Also, if you are cutting stickers, as you go farther down the page, the Cricut cuts it more and more off. 2. The print and cut space is tiny, at only 6.75 inches x 9.25 inches. That means if you want to print stickers you can only fit it within that space, otherwise they wont cut. Thats a pretty big area of wasted real estate, especially since sticker paper can get extremely expensive. 3. In my time of owning this dreadful machine, Cricut has done a software update that completely DESTROYED its print and cut capabilities. The designs would be consistently cut off and you couldnt fix it with calibration. Online Ive seen lots of people who have small businesses depending on these machines get completely blindsided by this update and waste hours trying to get their Cricuts to work. When I emailed the company asking them how to fix this, their response was basically, We know this problem exists. We are trying our best to fix it quickly. NOT ONLY DID THEY NOT OFFER A SOLUTION (ex. downgrading to a previous version of the software) THEY ALSO DID NOT GIVE A TIMEFRAME OF WHEN THE ISSUE WOULD BE FIXED. At the price you are paying for these machines you would expect much more consistent performance capabilities. Even worse, they had zero transparency regarding this issue and basically only confirmed it existed if you contacted them about it. 3. The software - Cricut Design Space - you use to format images for cutting SUCKS. IT IS TERRIBLE. First off, theyll randomly update it and itll just stop working until you find that one stupid setting they changed and revert it back to the original. Furthermore the blade can only cut at one pressure. This means for stickers, if you want to have sticker sheets youd have leap through so many hoops. This is because sticker sheets need two blade pressures - a lighter one for cutting out the stickers that dont go all the way through the paper and a heavier one for cutting out the rectangle that the stickers sit on that goes all the way through the paper. ATROCIOUS. New problem - A BIG ONE: 1. Cricut has announced that they will be limiting the upload frequency to Cricut Design Space to 20 a MONTH in March of 2021. THIS IS APPALLING!! Basically in order to get your Cricut to cut the design you want, you have to upload that design to Cricut Design Space. Fine tuning designs and cutlines take A LOT OF TRIAL AND ERROR. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WORKING ON 3D PAPER MODELS. STICKERS TO A DEGREE AS WELL. 20 uploads is nothing. It will get used up instantly. Its funny as Cricut has said before Creative freedom should be free. :)))) Phew~ If youve made it this far, congrats. Honestly Cricut works fine when you get it to work, but when it only works 1% of the time and 99% of the time its mind numbingly, hair tearingly terrible, it’s NOT WORTH IT. This has been the worst purchase of my life. I did not research enough before getting this useless machine. Thanks to this awful experience, I have learned to research a lot more in depth whenever I have to make a bigger purchase. Anyways, I cant wait to sell this horrendous machine and invest in a better cutting machine. Its going to be rough doing that since I predict a lot of people will be looking forward to selling their vile Cricuts. Ive heard Silhouettes address basically every single problem Ive listed here. Before, I kind of shied away from the Silhouette Cameo as it was more expensive. But the frustrating experience Cricut provides proves its not worth it to save a couple bucks for your sanity. In terms of sticker cutting, Ive literally never seen any of the hundreds of artists I follow try to convince their followers to switch to Cricut, or that the Cricut is the superior cutting machine. Its always them trying to convince people that the Silhouette is better. And at this point, as a Cricut owner with firsthand experience of how terrible this machine is, Im inclined to believe.

Wife likes this a lot better than cameo, and this is so much quieter! Cameo is silly loud. Just wish this came with transfer paper. She wasnt able to complete her first project because there was not transfer paper included.

The item I received did not include: Pen and practice items

I purchased this Cricut for my daughters Christmas gift. She was thrilled and happy to get it.

This might be a long one, but I suggest you read if you are a new user, or potential sticker maker, card maker, or anything of that nature. I had a Cricut for 7 months, and switched to the Cameo Silhouette 4 last week. That was the BEST DECISION I MADE. Have not wasted 1 piece of material. Where as with the Cricut, it had ruined so much of my material I probably wasted 65% of material used. Please read below: So, at first when I got this I was super excited, and it took a huge learning curve to understand everything that goes into it, including the mats used, the software, how to create everything, and the interface of Cricuts design studio. But, once I finally got the flow I was good to go, so I thought. In the first month, my Cricut was having a ton of issues cutting cardstock. I tried a million different settings, and pressures, etc. Nothing worked, everytime it would cut yardstick it would rip. Which if you look it up is a common theme of users. So I contacted cricket and after many emails back-and-forth they finally decided they would send me a new housing blade unit. So after the first three uses it stopped working again and my card stock kept getting ripped. Again this is super common but I thought it was me, and I thought it was user error. Its not its the cricket. Thats only one issue with the cricket. Another issue I have faced what is the fact that every time my cricket would cut sticker paper if I had it cutting a 90° angle it would completely rip the sticker and ruin the rest of the sticker paper. It would lift up the edges and so every time one sticker was ruined the rest of the stickers are ruined because you cannot stop and start and if its happening on one sticker the cricket is doing it to the rest. This is a huge issue for me because I run a sticker business so again I thought it was user error. I bought a blade pack off of Amazon and this came with multiple blades with different angles. So I try to use the different blades and that didnt help the situation either. I tried to change my sticker paper and that didnt change the situation either. I was getting super frustrated and I couldnt figure out what was going on but again I thought it was user error. It is not. Another issue I face is cutting card stock so I make cards as well for my business and one of the things that that I wanted the cricket to do was be able to cut the card around the edges. After I printed it. Thats just normal capability of what a cutting machine could do. This was not the case with the cricket every time my cricket would cut the card stock it would tear the card stock, or it would screw up the edges of the card stock meaning it would rip them up on the sides and create curls. So this is just the third issue out of many I have faced with the cricket. Now lets go to the issue of the design space so the design space is not user-friendly whatsoever you cant use it to its full capabilities meaning youre using material and every time you use that material you cant use the full white space because cricket does not allow that to happen therefore youre wasting material. This is another issue I faced because you cant choose what to cut and what not to cut the cricket just does it for you and it also doesnt allow you to attach items and then make it the full width of a page which is another huge issue because youre wasting so much material. The design space makes zero sense unless youve been using it for months on end I just figured out some of the capabilities that it had and theyre not even great. You cant zoom in and zoom out with your two fingers which is again a basic necessity of a user interface. Half the time it doesnt work it also doesnt allow you to create a trim or a offset outline of your item so you have to make a white background for every single item in procreate if that is the tool. youre using to create your stickers. This cricket cost me way more money on wasting materials and anger than anything. The customer service isnt good either it shouldnt have taken me 20 emails back-and-forth for them to figure out that my cricket housing for the blade wasnt working. I even had to take a video and waste more material just to prove to them what the issue was. All in all as the Cricut costs more money and has less capabablites I switched to the Silhouette America Cameo. Best decision yet.

I’m new to the whole cricut making thing and for someone who is new at crafting it’s not hard to understand and cuts nice. Definitely watch some YouTube videos over it to help and especially if your using procreate to figure out what’s best for file uploading or whatever . Pleasantly surprised Edit:took away a star because over time you have to calibrate your cricut like 5 times in order to keep your cuts accurate and clean. Just know that it cuts the borders of your print at least 90% well. Meaning that , for example if you have a puppy sticker with no white border around it, it might cut off a small section of the ear inaccurately and will have to re calibrate your cricut, and even then it’s still not 100% accurate with cutting. This is why I took away a star because it’s not only me who is experiencing this but a lot of the cricut community as well. I still love my cricut but I will have to make adjustments to my drawings to compensate.

Absolutely love the options this cricut gives vs the cricut joy I also have. The only problem I’ve been having is getting the Bluetooth to connect to my computer. Other then that, works great!

This has been so fun to use

Very easy to use, I use it to make shirts