We’re not selling this deal anymore, but you can buy it at Amazon

HP Photosmart 7520 Wireless eAIO Color Printer (Refurbished)

  • Model: Photosmart 7520
  • Prints up to 14 ppm black, 10 ppm color
  • Scanner resolution up to 1200dpi
  • Ships with 5 full-size factory-sealed ink cartridges (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black & Photo), model HP564
  • You can print into the cloud, or from the cloud, or on the cloud, or something the cloud
  • Includes fax capability if you’re, like, a government agency or you live in 1991
see more product specs

Subsidize Me

Isn’t it amazing, when you consider all the technology and sheer bulk that go into an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier, how cheap they are?

Not really. Because the manufacturer is actually losing money on that purchase, on the assumption that you’ll be buying a lot of big-markup printer ink from now on. They absorb - or, for you smartphone buyers, subsidize - the price of the printer to hook for you for life on their more lucrative products. The printer itself is the iPhone; the ink is the calling and data plan.

Pretty sweet arrangement they’ve worked out… except for three things:

  1. They don’t make you sign a contract obligating you to buy a certain amount of their printer ink for the next two years.

  2. Most of the people we know only print things like boarding passes and StubHub tickets these days. If that’s you, that ink is going to last a long time. Maybe even longer than the printer itself.

  3. They’ve added enough features to these machines to make them useful even if you rarely print anything. This HP Photosmart 7520 Wireless All-in-One is actually a pretty kickass scanner. If you’re more likely to convert physical documents into digital ones than the other way around, you win.

The subsidized pricing also distorts the relative value of printers. You can find a slightly inferior HP all-in-one for $10 less than this one. Seems like a big percentage difference to go from $70 to $60, huh? Maybe worth settling for slower printing and lower scanner resolution, right?

Except that when you compare the actual costs, the real difference is more like $500 to $490 (according to ballpark figures we pulled out of the ballpark in our ass), or a couple of percent. Our point is, buy this printer. It’s worth the extra $10. Especially if you don’t need that ten bucks to buy ink. That’s where they get you.

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