I've been eying the entry bambu lab mini, I'm not too keen on the closed aspect, but I figure if i get something cheap and I wanna stick with it i can shell out a few more bucks for a more capable open platform later on and still have something my kid can fuck around with

These entry level ones are a pain in the ass to find tune, though (which has to be done frequently). I don't know the cost of the cheapest automatic one, but I've got a friend with more expensive Bambu Labs and they're so much closer to "set and forget".

I have an Ender-3 V3. It has automatic bed leveling. Creality added quite a bit of features to it over the older budget Ender-3's while still keeping it relatively affordable. It's a lot faster than the prior ones too. I also have an Ender-3 V2 SE so I've had plenty of time to do some direct comparisons. While the older V2 SE is more finicky to level the bed, and it's slower to print, mine has been very reliable. Weirdly enough I find I use it more often for larger prints that may take several days, like big flat panels for robotics projects or big Gridfinity bins. I use the V3 for the quicker smaller prints that I want same-day.

I replaced the V2 SE's frustrating glass bed with a magnetic one, like the V3 comes with. It's much easier to deal with all-around. I replaced the bed springs with better ones so that I don't need to calibrate nearly as often. I got one of those better extruder kits for it. I think the Creality people realized how crap the V2 SE's stock plastic extruder is, so they kept the price for the metal upgrade kit at a palatable USD$10 and made it very easy to do the swap.

I'm reluctant to make a strong recommendation because the tech moves so fast and I haven't been into it for a couple years.

Same. I can say what worked for me, but there are certainly better options available now. The only thing which has interested me in the meantime is the Voron 2, but that is ABSOLUTELY not a beginner recommendation lmao (it is a design that you have to source and build yourself, sometimes partial/complete kits come and go but they are expensive).

These entry level ones are a pain in the ass to find tune, though (which has to be done frequently). I don't know the cost of the cheapest automatic one, but I've got a friend with more expensive Bambu Labs and they're so much closer to "set and forget".

In my experience, these things are like bicycles. There are hundreds of them. They all have wheels, handlebars, breaks, pedals. Some have shock absorbers and bells. If you buy a bike at Walmart, it will work, but the person who assembled it will never put as much love into it as you possibly can. Or if it comes in a box and you have to assemble it yourself, you'll follow the instructions and get it working, but it will still kind of suck until you take various bits of it apart and put it back together a second or third time.

If you want a perfectly tuned machine, you have to actually use it first and observe how it's performance falls short. The more expensive ones will (should) have higher quality components and be less finicky, but no matter what you get, it is going to require maintainence. I work in a machine shop on CNC machines which cost a quarter of a million dollars and I still have to tear these things apart and do all sorts nutty maintenance tasks (above and beyond the documented "preventative maintenance").

It wasn't until I disassembled my printer beyond the flat-pack state it came in and put it back together, after about a year of dicking around with it, that I got it to a state where I can start it up after months of idleness and still nail a print on the first shot.