[Macpilot]

I am looking for a B&W laser printer for OS X that will work with my Airport Express. It does not need to be high end.

Does anybody have any suggestions? My EPL5700i Epson that worked with OS9 is very spotty with OSX and won't do wireless. It is basically useless now.

Thanks!

[Mithras]

I absolutely adore my Samsung 2151N. It's more expensive than el cheapo lasers, at around $440 from newegg, but it's wonderful:
* duplex printing, so use half as much paper
* true postscript, so no spooling dozens of pages of error crap
* rock-solid stable

It replaced a Brother 1470N, which was cheap, but sht, with Postscript emulation that only kinda worked, and toner cartridges that faded out and produced gray pages long before the advertised lifespan.

If you don't mind taking up the space, many people swear by the practice of buying an old Apple Laserwriter, like a 16/600, for $50. The word is that they're built like tanks, and while not speedy, they just keep producing flawless output for years.

[Macpilot]

Originally posted by Mithras:
I absolutely adore my Samsung 2151N. It's more expensive than el cheapo lasers, at around $440 from newegg, but it's wonderful:
* duplex printing, so use half as much paper
* true postscript, so no spooling dozens of pages of error crap
* rock-solid stable

It replaced a Brother 1470N, which was cheap, but sht, with Postscript emulation that only kinda worked, and toner cartridges that faded out and produced gray pages long before the advertised lifespan.

If you don't mind taking up the space, many people swear by the practice of buying an old Apple Laserwriter, like a 16/600, for $50. The word is that they're built like tanks, and while not speedy, they just keep producing flawless output for years.

Will that Samsung work wirelessly? Does it come with drivers, or do I have to a hack with Gimp-Print?

Thanks!

[Macpilot]

I checked it out at pricegrabber and the Samsung site.

Can't tell the diff between the ML-2150 and the ML-2151N, except for the $100 difference.

What exactly do you get for that extra $100?

[new newton]

Samsung's driver support for OS X is horrid. Last fall when I was looking for a $300-$400 laser I was really drawn in by Samsung's prices and specs, but once I started reading about their drivers--no way! I went so far as contacting their tech support to find out their position, and I never got an answer. Definitely not a great purchase if you need Mac compatibility.

[Mithras]

Macpilot, the 2150 is just USB/parallel, while the 2151N includes a network card and print server. It's ethernet, so you'd have to have it connected to your base station.

EDIT: Oh, wait, you said Airport Express. Is that the teeny one, without any LAN ethernet ports? In that case, you would indeed need a printer with a wireless card built in.

I do remember running across a few printers with 802.11 wireless cards; I think HP had one, and there's the Samsung 2152W. In general these cost an additional $50-$100 above the ethernet models. Newegg shows the 2152W at $535, which might be creeping out of your "not high end" designation.

newton, sorry about your experience, but I have no complaints about Samsung's drivers. For 2151N drivers, I did this:
1. Go to http://www.samsung.com
2. Click 'Support', then 'Download Center'
3. Select Computers > Printer > Printers > ML-2151N
4. Click 'Driver' tab
5. Download a Mac OS X PPD file.

With full Postscript support, I've never had any driver compatability issues. There might be issues with the PCL or Postscript-emulation drivers on the lower-end models, I dunno, but in general my lesson has been to stick to true Postscript printers as a rule.

[new newton]

For USB printer sharing over the Express, all he needs is a USB port... and a printer that supports USB sharing on the Mac, of course.

[Macpilot]

Originally posted by new newton:
For USB printer sharing over the Express, all he needs is a USB port... and a printer that supports USB sharing on the Mac, of course.

I have done this in the past, but not all printers that work wired (USB) will work wirelessly on the Airport Express via USB as well.

[new newton]

Apple's got a list of supported printers linked off of their Airport base station page.

[OreoCookie]

I can definitely recommend Kyocera printers. My parents have the smaller FS-1010, I have the FS-1020D. The former is pretty cheap, offers Postscript2 and PCL6, spits out 14 pages per minute (A4) and has never bothered my parents. Mine is a bit faster and offers duplex (the reason why I bought it).