This Staples Micro-Cut Shredder Gives You Real Document Security Without the Premium Price
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Odds are you're not a lawyer, doctor, spy, or government contractor with banker boxes full of sensitive documents to destroy every week. Most of us simply want to obliterate our private paper trail: old tax returns, medical statements, credit card bills, insurance paperwork, shipping labels, and the occasional expired credit card to deny dumpster-diving identity thieves.
That's exactly what the Staples 12-Sheet Micro-Cut Multi-Media Shredder—our Best Value pick in our recent recommendations of the best paper shredders —is built to do.
No, it doesn't have the monster appetite or premium feel of the Fellowes LX220 , our pick for Best Overall. But for around $150, you get true P-4 micro-cut security, a realistic 12-sheet capacity, and one feature you won't find on any spec sheet: a shredder that rarely makes you think about the shredder itself.
- Can handle more than 12 sheets in one feed, as well as staples, paper clips, credit cards, CDs/DVDs, and thicker household paperwork nearly as well as much pricier models
- Slide-open cover protects against insertion accidents
- The bin filling—not an overheating motor—becomes the practical limit for continuous shredding
- Thick unopened junk mail can jam the shredder
- Feed slot is too narrow for standard 9×12-inch envelopes without folding
Fits Smaller Spaces and Can Be Moved Easily
At 18.5 inches tall, 13.8 inches wide, and 9.4 inches deep, this squat Staples shredder occupies roughly the same footprint as most of its similarly priced competitors, and at 20.3 pounds, it's not too heavy to move around. Considering the minimal space in my New York City apartment, it was right at home nicely abutting the end of my desk return. When I needed to shred, I just twisted it 90 degrees so the mouth faced me and I had plenty of room to slide the cover back.
Like several newer Staples shredders, this model also hides its shredding mouth beneath its unique sliding top cover—a valuable safety feature and one I have not encountered on a shredder before. (The closest equivalent feature I've seen is on three far pricier Fellowes PowerShred models that include "SafeSense," a sensor that auto shuts down shredding if it detects anything but paper near the shredding mouth.) Slide the cover back about an inch and a half via the top's indentation, and the shredder powers on while revealing its feed slot, controls, and status lights. Slide the cover back over the top, and the unit powers down.
This model has a unique sliding top cover, a valuable safety feature to prevent anything but paper from getting into it, that I haven't seen on a shredder before.Stewart Wolpin
Most importantly, that slide covering the shredder mouth means nothing untoward can fall into it. As parents often report, toddlers eager to emulate mommy or daddy will curiously insert non-shreddable items such as peanut butter, Play-Doh, crayons—or their fingers.
Once the cover is slid open, the shredder controls are refreshingly simple. Two large physical buttons—forward and reverse—sit to the left of the feed mouth. On the right, a blue LED indicates the shredder is ready to work, while a red LED signals either a full bin or an overheated motor. A row of additional "don't insert" warning icons depicting such shredder no-no items such as books, neckties, hair, hands, and kids' fingers are arrayed across the top of the shredding mouth.
Impressive Runtime and Overstated Cool Down Time
On paper, the Staples boasts a longer-than-usual (for its price) 20-minute runtime but suffers from a standard-but-still-too-long, 40-minute cool-down time.
This is one case, however, where specifications don't really inform you about a shredder's real-world performance. Specifications tell you what a shredder can potentially do. Living with one tells you what it actually does.
For instance, I found it impossible to overheat this shredder, and therefore, I never had to worry about the lengthy cool-down time. Instead, after roughly 10 to 15 minutes of steady shredding, its 5-gallon bin filled with micro-cut confetti that needed to be emptied before I could continue shredding.
By the time I'd carried the bin to dump its chewed contents, slid the drawer securely back in place, and gathered another stack of paperwork to feed into it, I'd given the motor exactly the break it needed. I filled and emptied three bins full of shredded bits in succession, and this model kept on shredding.
Accurate Capacity and Powerful Shredding
Many paper shredders tend to be hyperbolic in their single-feed sheet ratings. Some 12-sheet shredders seem stymied by 9 or 10 sheets, while 15-sheet models sometimes simper if you actually feed them 15 sheets.
This Staples shredder not only consistently handled its rated 12-sheet capacity without complaint; it even handled several 15-sheet stacks during my testing.
Knowing that I could feed the Staples machine more sheets than advertised was a relief. I realized I didn't have to obsessively count the specific number every time I fed it, unlike other models that exaggerated the number of sheets it could handle in a single feed.
It also had no trouble chewing through stapled documents, paper clips, birthday cards, election flyers, expired credit cards, CDs, DVDs, light card stock, and the usual assortment of junk mail that accumulates in every mailbox.
There is a decent-sized 5-gallon pull-out bin, and thanks to the bigger bin window, I could visually tell when the bin was nearing its capacity.Stewart Wolpin
Beware of the Junk Mail Jam
Thin envelopes containing a single folded advertisement got mulched without incident. Thicker mailers—the kind stuffed with reply cards, glued-on membership cards, and multiple folded inserts and reply envelopes—were another story. One particularly overstuffed political survey envelope finally produced the only genuine jam I experienced during testing. But, to be fair, such stuffed envelopes often give even higher-priced shredders trouble.
Staples' auto-reverse function helped, but not enough. I ultimately had to pull the envelope free by hand before trying again, this time after opening it and feeding the contents separately. Honestly, that's probably how I should have shredded it in the first place.
One other quibble. This isn't the speediest of shredders; let's just say it's deliberate. But since your shredding limit is how quickly the bin fills, and since you can feed it up to 15 sheets at a time, the Staples' relatively unhurried chomping really isn't an issue.
The Verdict
Consider this Staples 12-sheet shredder akin to a Honda Accord. It's not the fastest, fanciest, strongest, or most technically impressive machine, but like the Honda Accord, this shredder gets you where you need to go—and it's enough of a shredder for most home offices offering enough capacity, runtime, security, quiet, and value. And, should something go wrong with it (fingers crossed, it doesn't), you need only to visit your local Staples.
Sure, if you need to regularly shred stacks and boxes of old paperwork, step up to something like the Fellowes LX220 . But if your goal is to keep your bills, tax documents, medical paperwork, and credit card offers out of nefarious hands, that's exactly what this Staples shredder does.
Fellowes Powershred LX220
Amazon Basics 12-Sheet Micro-Cut Shredder
Bonsen S3113
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