THERE IS plenty of choice in the marketplace for low-cost lasers. Except where noted, all hold letter-to legal-sized paper; run at four pages per minute; cost roughly $4,500; offer 300-dpi resolution; have a one-year warranty; come with a base memory of half a megabyte; and do not support PostScript but work with Windows on IBM-compatible PCs.
The Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4L helped lead the charge into inexpensive laser printers and is the latest incarnation of the famous line of lasers. But while the base memory is a full megabyte, it is slower and accommodates less memory (a maximum of two MB) than the competition.
It is LaserJet-compatible, naturally, at PCL 5, but there is no PostScript option. It holds 100 pages coming in, letter-to legal-size, but only 50 out. It has a 'sleep' mode to save energy and a 'economode' to conserve toner, but the print quality is average.
You can pay extra for a three-year warranty with 24-hour replacement guarantee.
The Canon LBP-430 is a better deal. Mechanically it is a near-twin to the 4L, though it will take up to five MB of memory. (After all, Canon makes the engine HP uses in the 4L.) But the prints are much prettier, the warranty two years.
The Texas Instruments microWriter does not have resolution enhancement, but its five-ppm engine puts it slightly ahead of the LaserJet competition, and its two MB of base memory, expandable to four MB, is also a 4L-beater.
Better yet, it holds 250 sheets in, 230 out, and has an option to hold more. It is only PCL-4 compatible, and costs about $4,500.