My HP Laserjet P2015 is great. It's a real workhorse and the output is excellent.

I have an HP Laserjet P2015 as well for proofing type designs. Works great, really fast. Slow with bitmap images though, especially in 1200 dpi mode. The duplex model has more RAM (faster) and comes rather cheaply, but with a smaller toner cart, so the first cart (comes in the box) runs out fast (it's smaller than the normal ones), but then you can replace with to the regular size cart.

I really love my Ricoh Aficio SP 3300. It was cheap, has real Postscript 3 support, does great 1200 DPI prints and Ricoh sells a wonderful velvety black toner that produces more consistent prints than the uneven greyish mess I get from HP or even Xante.

James, that sounds incredibly good! Unfortunately, your printer doesn't seem to be available over here :-(.
I saw that PS support on yours also appears to be an emulation. Is there any decisive importance/advantage to having "real" PS support? I'm in the market for a printer too, and it seems that everything that's halfway in my price range only does PS "emulation". I wonder how badly that matters.

Ricoh printers have real postscript. HP uses the emulation. I'm not sure it matters as much as it used to, but at one time the emulation software limited your printing options. It's probably improved.

I love my Ricoh too FWIW. I have the Aficio AP610N - it does up to tabloid size which I need but you may not.

Are you sure? I'm confused. The Swiss Ricoh website lists "PostScript® 3 emulation" in the specs of the printer James mentioned – whatever that means … the whole PS business seems quite convoluted.

FWIW, I use a HP printer currently, and Dan Reynolds told me over on the German Forum not to use any hinting during the design process because the HP emulation tends to misinterpret hints & ends up ignoring overshoots. :-|
Concerns like that would certainly be nice to avoid.

The Ricoh network printers usually have real Postcript. I think that it gets listed as emulation because that’s the term retailers use for almost any Postscript support.