[gunnar]

I'm looking to spend $400 or so on a black and white laser printer. There are two main features I want it to have:

1. goes to sleep when not in use and is silent
2. wakes up quick

don't really care about speed or print quality, it's going to be used to print sales receipts but it has to be reliable and plug and play with OS X 10.5

[ghporter]

Did you look at this thread? LOTS of discussion of lasers (and other types).

[gunnar]

none of them seem to say anything about quick wakeup or quietness

[red rocket]

Personally, I'd always go with a used Apple LaserWriter. That said, I keep seeing these cheap Samsung printers all over the place, and although they seem like poorly made crap to me, they are quiet and start up quickly.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by gunnar 

none of them seem to say anything about quick wakeup or quietness

When it's asleep, you can't tell if the HL-2040 is on or not. It is dead silent. I timed it this morning, and it wakes up in about 4 seconds, starts printing (actually moving the paper) in less than 9, and finishes the first page in under 14 seconds. Successive pages come about as fast as the machine can move the paper.

[Veltliner]

I have a LaserJet 6MP (hewlett-packard). Excellent print quality. Ex 1000$ printer I bought for 75 dollars with less than 4000 copies on it. (from a real person, of course, not from eCrook, also known as eBay).

You just have to get around the issue that you can't use the apple talk connectors. I connect through Ethernet, works great.

[Veltliner]

Regarding the noise: if it's not printing, it doesn't make any noise. At all.

[Cadaver]

I have a Brother HL-2070N. Silent when not in use. Wakes up and spits out a page before my inkjet printer could even get the paper moved in to position.

After printing, fan stays on low for about 15 seconds or so before quieting back down or so.

[OreoCookie]

That's quite common with regular laser printers: my Kyocera does the same thing: it's absolutely silent until you print, then the fan runs for another minute or so until all components have cooled off.

[galenea]

I also have an HL-2040. Have had it for ~2 years now. At a previous job I used an HL-1040. As ghporter said, these printers are quiet during sleep, print as fast as they can move the paper and are reliable. Consumable costs are reasonable as well. I've also never had a problem with drivers or compatibility with OS X.

[analogika]

I rather like this one:

GRAVIS - Samsung ML-1630 DIN A4 S/W-Drucker USB-2, bis zu 1.200 x 600 dpi

[vmarks]

I use a brother, an HP 4000n (and also like the 2300dtn), and an okidata

The okidata is faster than any of them, but I don't like the quality as much.
The 4000n is good, but the 1st page out takes a bit. the 2300dtn was much faster.
The brother is dog slow.

I have a preference for network printers. I connect it to the airport extreme, and print wirelessly over the network from all machines, and I don't have to fool with or rely on USB, which always seems more unreliable than network to me.

I also upgrade the ram in the printer. mostly, you don't have to, but I found that it helped the brother pick up some speed.

[OreoCookie]

I have a Kyocera and I'm very happy with it (I've printed more than 20,000 pages so far). It's also totally silent unless I print or when cooling down after completing a job (for about half a minute or so).

[Big Mac]

I vote Lexmark. I really like my E120N.

[SSharon]

I have an older Brother HL1440 (or is it 1450) and it takes just under 30 seconds for the first page to complete. As others have said, it is dead silent when not in use and quiets down quickly after use.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogika 

I rather like this one:

GRAVIS - Samsung ML-1630 DIN A4 S/W-Drucker USB-2, bis zu 1.200 x 600 dpi

I just hooked my Samsung ML-1630 up. Works great in both Tiger (direct printing from my iMac, and printing over Airport from my laptop) and Leopard (over Airport from another laptop).

The text quality is excellent. Photo quality is mediocre compared to my Canon i960 photo printer, but that's to be expected. The printer itself looks great too.

[gunnar]

I ended up buying a Brother HL-5250DN. It's quiet, cheap, fast and reliable. Highly recommended. Sucks for photos but for high volume text it's perfect.