Hi,
I just got funding at work (up to $500) to buy a printer for my classroom. I've got 18 4 year old iBooks (those are Apples in case you're Mac-challenged to use the PC terminology) running OS 10.3. Right now, I've an old HP 810 I can plug them into via USB, but I want to be able to simply have the students print from their seats. Our IT person is hopeless when dealing with this so I thought who better than the people whose jobs and hobbies revolve around good printers. Since 50% of the time, I'm having to buy the ink cartridges for my classroom, if I happen to accidentally push the print button when I'm looking at some of my WorldWorks stuff at work, I won't feel obligated to report myself for felony embezzlement charges.
So, the characteristics of the printer I'm looking for are:
1. Mac-compatible
2. Wirelessly Networkable, ideally able to handle 10+ print requests at once (kids all want to print when the bell rings)
3. Inexpensive but gooood looking prints- If I'm buying ink, I don't want to spend a lot of money, but I want my buildings, I mean the student reports to look nice.
4. Pretty fast. In draft mode, it would be nice if it could pump out 15-30 pages of mostly B&W in one or two minutes.
5. Dependable. Our IT guy is okay, but I don't want my printer down for 2-3 weeks while he deals with missing mouse balls.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'd read previous threads recommending various printers, but I was uncertain which printers were good for networking. I realize this isn't exactly MacWorld or Cnet, but you guys seem to be knowledgeable and focused on what I want, good printing, and not brand loyalty.
Thanks

Well, I just picked up an HP Photosmart All-In-One C6180 last weekend for less than $300. It has most everything you are asking for...wireless networking, Mac compatability, and fairly fast printing. I have yet to try any of the WWG stuff on it, spending my time playing around with the photo printing, scanning and copying capabilities first, because that's what my wife was most interested in. Tonight I'll print off a few pages and see how it fares.

The biggest drawback that I can see with this printer for you would be the fairly small paper tray. It can only hold 50 pages at a time, so you may run into issues having to constantly refill the paper tray, if your students print a lot.

You can also buy a wireless print server/node (whatever you want to call it) and hook any kind of printer you want upto that, they run about 60-80$ AUD

edit: eg



messy Url...

Printed off several pages from DungeonLynx. Really nice printout, good speed, better than my old Canon i850. Used default print settings for it.

If the students can print from their seats, they may do a LOT of printing

You might want to lean towards a printer with lower 'per page' running costs.

Also, if it is a classroom, and the students can print at will, then make sure you get a reasonably quiet printer. (Printer spec sheets normal include noise levels in dB - it is a logarithmic scale, where each increase of 6dB is twice as loud)