[gunnar]

I have to buy a cheap laser printer for my girlfriend. She prints a lot of text so I figured it would be more cost effective to go laser than inkjet. Please recommend a USB laser writer that works well with OS X 10.3 and gets a lot of life from its toner.

[OreoCookie]

What's the budget? Do you need duplex? No matter what, it should have at least PCL, postscript would be better.

I would suggest taking a look at Kyocera or also at Brother (their new printers are very, very small).

[gunnar]

Any specific models you can recommend? I thought OS X rasterized everything so you didn't need Postscript built in anymore.

[OreoCookie]

No, you don't need it. But you'll always be dependent on the manufacturer to release a driver which is usually not a problem, but can become one (I once had to buy a driver from HP, because my parents switched from Windows 98 to Windows 2000). In general, those `smarter' printers have in general a better built quality.

Now some specific models: Kyocera FS-820 with PCL6 (there is also a `dumb model' FS-720, but it's not compatible to the Mac), my printer, the FS-1020D with integrated duplex unit, more expensive, but I needed duplex.

If you want to take a look at the extremely flat HL2040, although I would recommend one with PCL support, e. g. the HL5140.

Also, cheaper printers usually come with smaller toner cartridges, e. g. the smaller Brother's cartridge lasts 1500 pages according to the website (usually they assume a very, very low 5 % coverage which is too little to account for graphics, logos or background images) while the larger model can be equipped with a 6700-page cartridge. While I wouldn't take the exact number of pages at face value, the relative sizes should be ok, though. (E. g. my Kyocera's cartridges last at least 7000 pages, 7-10k according to their website, I didn't have to replace mine yet, however). The HL2040 appears a bit flimsy, so I would suggest you to take a look at slightly larger models as well.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by gunnar

I have to buy a cheap laser printer for my girlfriend. She prints a lot of text so I figured it would be more cost effective to go laser than inkjet. Please recommend a USB laser writer that works well with OS X 10.3 and gets a lot of life from its toner.

Under those circumstances it would have to be a LaserJet 101x.

I have the cheapest one of that series, the 1010. My g/f has it too. My nephew has the 1012. It works extremely well and it was dirt cheap. HP never bothers to mention that it's OS X compatible, but it has worked fine for me under Panther and Tiger with the standard HP LaserJet drivers that you can d/l from their website. It's also AirPort compatible so you can hook it up to a base station and use it as a network printer even though it doesn't come with Ethernet. It prints very crisp text and its grayscales are actually not bad at all. It's fast and quiet. I never had a paper jam and the last toner cartridge (which doesn't cost much more than what I used to pay for a set of inkjet cartridges) lasted for 3700 pages.

If it's supposed to be a cheap laser printer, I couldn't recommend anything else than a HP laserJet 1010. Its overall price performance ratio is stunning.