Worse still, some printer manufacturers automatically update the firmware without the user even knowing about it. Now you your driver will prompt you to update the firmware and in a click of a button your firmware is updated. You had to download a utility to push it to the printer so almost nobody updated their firmware unless there was a bug that required it. Traditionally it was a difficult process to update firmware. Aftermarket chip companies develop their chip to work with current HP firmware, then HP updates the firmware and guess what? Aftermarket cartridges developed for the older firmware won’t work. HP’s latest salvo in the war of toner cartridges has been via firmware updates.

Since then HP has been playing an elaborate game of whack-a-mole with the aftermarket toner cartridge industry attempting to block aftermarket toner cartridges. But it didn’t take long for the aftermarket toner cartridge industry to figure out how to replace the chip with an aftermarket chip. This technique was originally deployed to prevent cartridges from being recycled or remanufactured. These chips also tell your printer that the cartridge is empty or the cartridge is not genuine HP and to stop printing. These chips store useful information such as pages printed and toner coverage. Here’s a complete compatibility list for the W1340A and W1340X MICR toner cartridges.Įver since the HP LaserJet 4100 was released back in 2001, HP toner cartridges have had chips on them. HP does add an additional year of the HP warranty and gives you six months of free toner (up to 1,500 pages per month) when you sign up for HP+. Yes you save $40 when you buy the printer, but we still recommend buying the dw and avoid the hassle of joining HP+ and suffering through a fair bit of spam from HP.

If you sign up HP will spam you to buy their toner via HP+ through email and on your local computer through the driver. With HP+, HP is attempting to bypass the middleman and sell toner directly to the end user. The dwe variant requires that you register an account with HP and sign up for HP+. Note: HP offers two variants of the LaserJet M209 – M209dw and M209dwe.

Laser jet pro m227fdw mirc ink toner