[jrockway]

This must be consumer vs. enterprise. For consumers, they're going to buy the item that is $1 less at the time of purchase, even if it costs them hundreds of dollars over the lifetime of the printer. For enterprises, they have accountants tracking the total cost of ownership, so they aren't going to optimize like this. HP is in both businesses; cheap inkjets for people that want to print stuff at home, cheap laptops for corporations that need to give their employees a Windows laptop with 25 minutes of battery life. I am sure the TCO on the cheap laptops actually saves customers money, at least when Windows is required.

(I have been issued an HP laptop before. They certainly don't spend money on the screen, keyboard, battery life, cooling, or industrial design. You can add your own memory though!)