I purchased this when an old laser jet finally bit the dust a while ago. The printer was very well packed, and easy to physically set up. I was concerned that connecting it up would become difficult but it was very simple indeed.
Although it's a networked printer, we run a server based network, and as such have shared this printer out from our Windows 2008 server. We have Windows XP, and windows 7 PC's (both 32 bit and 64 bit) printing via the server. We also have Macs that are happy to print directly via the network.

The printer's speed in incredible - comfortably churning out 30 or so pages a minute - but more impressively - it also prints in duplex. For a machine with such a small footprint, that is amazing. We have configured it to print duplex by default, practically halving our paper costs.

The only issue is the toner - we are not heavy users of the printer, and I was surprised when the printer told me it needed a new one - but I suspect this is because the one it was shipped with was probably designed to run out quickly. It did give me two weeks notice (at least), so you have plenty of time to replace the toner.
I can't say that canon's toner usage is worse than the rest - but I can definitely say it is better than some.
There are a wealth of features that we have yet to use but for simple quick and quiet printing, out of the box, you can't go wrong with this printer.