From my personal experience owning printers, ink jets have lasted a much shorter time working properly than lasers, therefore if it were me, I'd get a good laser printer. If your budget is a concern, several good lasers can be had on ebay. If you are REALLY in a budget pinch, but want a great quality laser, consider the Apple Laserwriter Select 360. You can get these now for DIRT cheap on ebay ($5-$30). There are a couple issues. One, to use it on Ethernet, you need an Asante Ethernet to Localtalk adapter (cheap on ebay). Second, you need to keep the printer on all the time for it to work properly with the Asante. The print quality is amazing, as with virtually all modern lasers. You also would want to upgrade the ram to 16mb. I have a Laserwriter 360, my mom has one, my mother-in-law has one (on a PC), and all work perfectly. Toner is also very cheap on ebay ($10-$30 per cartridge). All in all, it is probably one of the cheapest ways to first rate print quality.
If you want a new printer, consider a color laser. I have seen good reviews on some models in the $300-$500 range. Your cost per page is MUCH less with a laser, and the print quality is better.
For some perspective, I found some specs for the Select 360:
Codename: "Viper"
Introduced: October 1993
Discontinued: April 1996
Type: Electrophotography
Processor: AMD 29200
Processor Speed: 16 MHz
Language: PostScript Level 2, PCL 5
Colors: 1
Connection: Serial, Centronics parallel, LocalTalk
Pages Per Minute: 10
DPI: 600
Cartridge: M1960G/A
Power: 450 Watts
Weight and Dimensions (US): 26 lbs., 8" H x 15" W x 18.3" D
Weight and Dimensions (Metric): 11.8 kg., 20.3 cm H x 38.1 cm W x 46.5 cm D
ROM Size: 3 MB
Maximum RAM: 16 MB
Number of Sockets: 1, 72-pin SIMM
Minimum RAM Speed: 80 ns
History: The LaserWriter Select series was - just like the Personal LaserWriter series - designed for home computer users and small businesses. It was produced from 1993 to 1996 and was therefore a direct competitor of the Personal LaserWriter series. The Select series was always a little faster and had more RAM, but generally both series were very similar. The LaserWriter Select series was discontinued in 1996.
From the previous, the amazing part is that the three printers in my family are between nine and twelve years old!! And they all print perfect!! Try that with an ink jet. Also, the expected life of the Select 360 is 300,000 pages. Mine has just under 8000 pages, and the others in my family have 21000 and 27000. I also have a spare one that I am giving away that has 79000 pages on it and it too still prints perfect text.