I have a brother HL-2040 right now. It's a monochrome laser printer, it prints out really fast and I like it. I did have an HP laserjet 1020 but there were no vista drivers so I decided to get a printer with a few more features such as concealed paper tray, higher PPM, higher capacity toner. The toner is only about 60 bucks and lasts for roughly 5000 pages which is fine for me. I did have an inkjet but the way i print, it didn't last long. I print a lot of text and ink was too expensive to keep going through.
Overall for brands, I think HP is the best. I've had many HP printers, actually that's all I've had until I got the brother. I never had a problem with any of them, I have one that's 13 years old and still runs like new but it's slow and it's parallel so I can't use it. I've heard mixed opinions about lexmark, they seem a bit cheap to me but some people like them. I guess it's just a matter of opinion. I've also noticed that lexmark cartridges seem to cost a little more than HP. I say whatever gets the job done is good.
