Fellowes Shredder: decent/minimal shredder, if on a budget & tight on space.
Written: Apr 19 '06 (Updated Nov 07 '06)
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Pros: Inexpensive, small, and does cross-cut shredding.
Cons: Only handles about 3 sheets, and clogs easily.
The Bottom Line: If you're on a budget, have little to shred, and small space, you might try this one (otherwise, you'll probably want a bigger more powerful one).
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| graphics_guy's Full Review: Fellowes OD500C (Confetti-Cut) Shredder |
I wanted a shredder to safely get rid of unwanted "personalized" junk mail, credit card offers, credit card "checks", pre-authorized cellphone offers, enron statements, etc, etc, etc... I really only had a handful of documents needing shredded, so I wasn't looking to make a "major purchase" out of this.
Went by the mega office-supply stores, and they had a wide range of shredders.
Here are the features that interested me in this shredder:
o Claimed to shred 5 pages at a time.
o Shredded longways & crossways (makes strips much more difficult for a dumpster-diver to re-assemble).
o Small size (I only planned to use it occasionally, and wanted it to sit unnoticed/hidden when not in use).
o Auto-power (when you stick the paper in it turns on, and when it finished shredding it turns off).
o And with the claim to handle paperclips & staples, I assumed it was pretty tough :)
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Let's get Shredding:
Although I would normally only get a few items per month that needed shredding, I had several years worth to start with. This gave me lots of time to practice :) I soon found that I couldn't really/reliably shred 5 pages at once -- three sheets was about the max. Also, I found that I needed to give the shredder a break after shredding 10 or 20 3-pages, or I would start smelling a slight "burning motor/wire smell". Also, when shredding very "thick" paper, I would recommend just feeding one sheet at a time. Also, I finally resigned to just shredding the "important/personal" pages, and not shredding the envelopes, etc. I never put to the test the claim it could handle staples & paperclips (just didn't seem prudent to try that ;)
This unit does have an on/off/reverse switch. During tough shredding, I find that I frequently have to use the reverse mode. Designed for a max of 5 pages, the feeder slot is very small, but since small children "might" could get their fingers into it, or a dog might could get it's tongue into it, I would strongly recommend unplugging the unit when not in use.
My mass-shredding was a bit much for the shredder, but it did make it through that (with liberal use of rest-stops), and now it keeps up quite well with my 3-5 pages of shredding per week.
If I had to do it all over again, I think I would have opted for a unit with a slightly larger collection bin, and a somewhat more powerful motor - the motor generally does the job, but I did find I was having to do the forward/reverse a lot on tough/thick paper, and manually unclogging paper from the bottom-side of the shredder mechanism more frequently than I would like.
Recommended:
Yes
Purchase Price (if leased, monthly payment): 43
Machine age (Months in use): Over 1 year.
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Epinions.com ID:
graphics_guy
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Reviews written: 35
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