Which toner fits the Lexmark CS417dn?

One cartridge, three levels of machine

It is a quirk of this range: the 317, the 417 and the 517 share exactly the same four cartridges. What separates them is not the consumable but what Lexmark expects of them.

The recommended monthly volume goes from 500 to 5,000 pages on a 317 to 800 to 6,000 on this 417, and the maximum cycle from 60,000 to 75,000. The engine is tougher, the speed higher — 30 pages per minute — but the cartridge still holds 3,000 pages of black.

The direct consequence: on a 417 pushed to the top of its range, a black empties in a fortnight. If you replace a 317 with a 417 thinking "same cartridge, same budget", the difference will surprise you — it is not the cartridge that changed, it is the pace at which the machine empties it.

Black goes two to three times faster

Its 3,000 pages against the colours' 2,300 say nothing about real use. Black works alone on every ordinary document; the three colours are used only together, and only on colour output. Keep a spare black permanently, and a full set of colours rather than an isolated cartridge — they reach the end of their life within days of each other.

A printer on its own, on a wired network

It prints, and only that: no scanner, no copying, no fax. It connects over Ethernet or USB, with no Wi-Fi, holds 250 sheets plus a manual feed, and shows its state on a 6 cm colour screen.

The lack of a scanner has one merit when estimating consumption: everything that comes out was sent from a workstation, with a trace. On its multifunction cousin the CX317dn, copying escapes all tracking and widens the gap between estimated volume and the real counter.