My old HP LaserJet 1020 has finally stopped working with my Mac. Never meant to work with OS X, I could trick the 1020 into working by using the 1022 drivers. It meant jumping through a few hoops, but it worked fine ... until Snow Leopard. Now the old drivers aren't working, and the hacks to get it up and running again aren't worth the time.
At the same time my wife's replacing her ancient Sony Viao with a new MacBook Pro, so the time seems ripe for a new, Mac friendly printer. My initial thought was to take advantage of Apple's $100 rebate on new printers, but that only covers inkjets. I've had little luck with inkjets -- they drink ink like vampires, and seem prone to breaking down for no reason.
That's led me to research new Mac-compatible laser printing options. Queries on Twitter and research on Amazon turned up two candidates:
I'm leaning toward the Brother. The HP looks like the successor to the HP 1020, which -- despite its quirks -- was an affordable printer with good quality printouts. Unfortunately there are a number of reports on Amazon about overheating and smoking (the former leading to the latter). The Brother HL2270DW, on the other hand, gets good marks for affordability and long-lasting toner cartridges, but there are occasional problems with connectivity.
Both only support the B/G wifi standards, rather than N. With my wife moving to a new laptop, I'd hoped to be able to switch the entire wireless network to N only, but I suppose I could run things dual-band.
My question for the Nuketown readership is this: what what do you think? What's your favorite wireless printer? What's your favorite brand?