Color Laser Recommendations?

[David McMillen]

I'm looking for a new color laser printer (printer only) to replace my Dell 2150cdn. I only print a few hundred pages a month at most so speed is not important nor a huge monthly duty cycle, but I do want to be able to print very good to excellent quality photos on the appropriate photo letter stock, coated or otherwise. I understand the differences between inkjet and laser printers so I know it is not possible to get real photo quality out of a laser printer. If I want that I will send off or take and have printed. Would like to keep under $500. The HP M452dw has pretty good reviews for text, graphics and photo quality, but the HP toner cartridges are combined cartridges making the afer market cartridges in the $50 range. This has turned out to be a lot harder than when I purchased my Dell 2150cdn. The review of the color output on most laser printers show problems with posterization, dithering, loss of detail, too much saturation, banding, and so on. I could consider keeping an inkjet around for printing photos, but I don't do enough photo printing to merit the hassles of owning another injet printer and dealing with dried up ink heads and cartridges due to non-use. I swore I would never do that again.

Does anyone have any suggestions of printers I might look at? Thanks! David