OpenType, printers, and OS X

[Jim Robertson]

I'm in the market for a new b/w printer. I want something that will do
duplex printing, be reasonably fast, and work well on my small home LAN.
This printer will replace an Apple LaserWriter 8500 that has eaten its last
piece of Laser Bond (can you tell the bloom is off my love affair with this
beast?)

My understanding of printers is pretty basic. For example, I don't know what
good it is to have resident PS fonts in the printer if I use a TT variant by
mistake while editing. Does the printer use the font I use in my document,
or does it substitute what it has in its own RAM? I would think the former,
because if it used its own font that might change character spacing, even
line breaks, etc.

Even more fuzzy to me is what the printer does with OpenType fonts? Does a
REAL PS interpreter have any advantages over a PS clone, or for that matter
over not having ANY form of PS rendering ability?

Finally, at MW Expo SF I tried to make my purchase decision, but most of the
printer vendors were hawking their color laser printers. The folks at
Brother told me NO ONE makes laser printers that do edge-to-edge printing. I
picked up a Xerox brochure and it says their Phaser 4400 and above do
edge-to-edge printing! AND, as best I can tell, they're the one vendor still
offering true Adobe PS. Anyone have experience with this line of printers?

Macworld Magazine likes the HP4300 because it's Rendezvous-enabled, and my
hospital has a bunch of 4200s and 4300s. They're quick, but I'm impressed by
how cheap the plastic parts are, and I can already see things falling
off/breaking off.

(the old saw about fine Jaguar autos: Every piece that falls off was hand
crafted)

Any/all opinions/rants/vendor recommendations much appreciated!

Jim Robertson
--