I've heard about the "with chip" clone tanks and understand they are mostly remanufactured OEM tanks with reset chips that can work one time but are relatively expensive. I did pick up something on Nifty about new Pelikan tanks with clone chips - IDK if they are in the states yet. However, they do retain the functionality of level sensing, etc from the printer. Using chip transplant tanks are much easier than ever. An Xacto blade will free the chips from your old tanks - be careful as they aren't interchangeable - by removing the nibs from the tops of the two little pins that hold the chips in place. The new tanks have clips to hold the chips instead of the old double-sided tape method. But you still lose functionality and I believe (with no concrete evidence) that using them hastened the closeting of my 4300. I also read on nifty that the transplantable, pre-filled tanks for the large text black (eigther 3e or the PGI-5) from G&G (the ones SwiftInk was selling last time I bought) don't contain the pigmented ink as they are supposed to - they contain the dye-based black. Can mess up your printer. From what I know now, I'd be refilling the PGI-5 tank with good pigmented black myself and only using the pre-filled clone tanks for the 8 series tanks. In fact, I'd probably be refilling all of the chipped tanks instead of transplanting - if I had, I feel that my 4300 would probably still be working.
I am now using an HP K5400 with a set of refillable tanks I got thru eBay which is still working fine, and have had no experience with the "with chip" tanks. But I'd probably be using them if my 4300 still worked - saving half the cost of OEM tanks is better than nothing. Check on the forums at Nifty-Stuff.com to see what the folks there say about them - probably more info on Canon stuff than anywhere else. Last I knew there was only one seller of the chipped clone tanks - that was always bothersome to me. If you decide to go with the transplant tanks, the same ones that SwiftInk sells are available for significantly less elsewhere unless you catch one of their 35% off deals and buy enough to get free shipping as well.
.bh.