Color laser printer advice please

With my wife's birthday fast approaching, I would welcome any recommendations for a good quality A4 color laser printer. Her HP Photosmart has been giving increasing problems of late. She does not print regularly and I suspect that this is why the inkjets she's had have been problematic. Main uses would be for low volume text and photographs - the latter not for framing or exhibition, just personal use. 

I realise that the photo quality is likely to be poorer than inkjet but I would like the best I can get.

Any experiences or advice would be most welcome. Googling has resulted in a mish-mash of conflicting opinions (no surprises there then!).

Thanks,

Clive

Even the best color lasers won't give you anywhere near as good of photo than the consumer grade Photo inkjet printers.  Part of the reason is that color lasers just use 4 colors of toner where inkjets use 2 to three times as many,  Plus it's much easier to make a new color by metering the right amount of various ink colors as compose to trying to simulate a color with 4 solid toner dots.  I would suggest two printers.  A cheap black and white laser like an HP and a decent consumer grade photo printer like those from Epson.  Those two together will cost you a whole lot less than the best color lasers and give you dramatically better image quality and allow you to use any photo paper you want with color profiles, etc.

I would second E.J.'s suggestion but also add a printer to look at - Brother HL-2240D (may have a newer model now) great bang for the buck and very nice B/W photo print quality for a laser printer.

Thanks EJ & Dick. The reason I was considering the laser route was that we have had no end of problems with clogging of inkjets possibly due to her rather intermittent color printing - it may be weeks between photo printings. Additionally her photos are only for personal use so quality is somewhat less of an issue for her.

I'll check the prices and running costs of B&W laser plus inkjet cf. Color laser and see where my research leads me.

Many thanks,