This is something irrelevant but I thought I'd share an anecdote from a mate who worked for HP a long time ago. He worked on their driver software for their printers. In one of the assignment he was asked to rebrand the same software with another manufacturer's name (can't recall if it was Canon or Epson)! HP may have shared some printer technology with another company.

There is nothing new in this space. HP hasn't exactly been the beacon of customer satisfaction thanks to their restrictive policies. Most of these printers are probably made in similar factories (probably a handful of places), somewhere in China. I'd buy from a brand that offers more flexibility when it comes to ink/toner than anything else.