What is a toner chip?

What is the advantages of printer toner with chip?

• I have a printer, model Samsung ML 1610 and there is no chip in the toner. But my MFD SCX 4300 samsung has chip level toner. I have suffered much with the chip level model, that the printer is not responding while a refill done. Please tell me to select a printer or MFD without tension free.

• Answer:

  The following is just my opinion on this issue, so take it as such. Advantages for you: none. Advantages for the printer manufacturer: several. I've seen various explanations for why manufacturers put chips inside their printer ink/toner cartridges, but I still believe that any logic that is put into the cartridge could most likely be put into the printer instead. It's advantageous for the printer manufacturer not to do so. For one thing, the chip can be designed in such a way to prevent the ink/toner cartridge from being re-used as when you refill it. The manufacturer's claim that the cartridges are only designed for a certain amount of use before they wear out and give poor print quality. If there is no logic on the cartridge, the printer can't tell if you inserted a new or refilled cartridge into the printer. Designing the chip to essentially turn the cartridge into a brick at a certain point prevents this. It also happens to kill the refill market for which the manufacturer makes no money. There are or at least were, a number of HP ink cartridges that would brick themselves if the ink wasn't used by a certain expiration date regardless of how much ink was left. Later models let the user override that. A cynical person (i.e., me, in this case) might think that they are just dissatisfied with how often they are making money from a customer. Another advantage is that if they put a chip - a chip with software logic in it - they can attempt to sue any company that makes compatible cartridges citing DMCA violations. At least, that's what Lexmark attempted. They won the case originally, but lost upon appeal by what sounded like technical issues Lexmark could well avoid in the future. It was ruled that software wasn't sufficiently complex to warrant protection under the DMCA. I think that could easily be fixed. At any rate, the manufacturer will certainly put something in the chip in an effort to make sure the cartridge is genuine (i.e., made by the manufacturer and not someone else that would undercut their prices). Perhaps not so much in the laser printer market (or maybe this happens there now, too, since laser prices have fallen so much), but manufacturers often sell their ink jet printers at a loss. They make money on the outrageous prices charged for minuscule amounts of ink in the cartridges. If you are buying yours from a 3rd party, they sold the printer to you at a loss and never make up for the loss. (I also think this contributes to the printer ink expiration situation.)