Having owned more printers than I can remember, including Epson, Brother, Ricoh, Tektronix, HP, using laser, inkjet, and even other technologies, I think there are a few conclusions to draw:<p>+ For printing <i>documents</i> laser printers are by far the best choice for reliability, economy and quality of output. Color lasers have become quite reasonably priced, so if color printing is needed, no need to get something less.<p>+ For <i>photos</i>, nothing beats a high-quality pigment inkjet printer, but they can be expensive, especially large-format models.<p>About 12 years ago I bought an Epson Pro 4000, with 17x22in capability, it was at the time used leading edge tech. It required 8 ink cartridges. I preferred the 220 ml size, but those cost ~$100 each. The main problem with the 4000 was the heads clogging easily, a big annoyance and costly too.<p>But the Pro 4000 made absolutely gorgeous prints. Now it needs to be replaced, though spending >$2000 is not a pleasant prospect. Newer machines no doubt have much better print heads, probably lower TCO.<p>AS many here point out, small desktop inkjets can be expensive to operate and document output quality is often poor vs. laser.<p>+ It's been pretty consistent, printers and printer drivers cause 90% of system admin problems. Windows has always been by far the worst on this score. Amazingly, I had tremendous issues with a 6 year old Ricoh under Windows, but absolutely no driver problems with Linux. The customary Postscript-based printing in the Unix world is a predictable standard and usually easy to work with.<p>Many laser printers have built-in Postscript emulation, though a PS option for high-end printers or plotters can cost upward of $1000. Still might be worth it to avoid the Windows printer driver hell.