The Fellowes FS5M Shredder: Small, Sleek, Simple, and Spartan

Author's Rating:

Pros: compact, no jams, comes with basket, supports staples

Cons: largish strips, ends stick to mechanism, need to empty frequently, not as robust as claimed

The Bottom Line: 
If you have extremely light shredding needs and want a compact, all-inclusive shredder for as little money as possible, the Fellowes FS5M shredder is a decent choice.

Author's Review
I've been resisting buying a shredder for my apartment because I don't think I have enough important documents to dispose of that I really need one. I still don't think not having one is a problem, but when I saw the Fellowes FS5M shredder on sale for $15 at Target I made an impulsive decision to buy it. I'm not sorry I did.

The Fellowes FS5M shredder comes with its own small mesh wastebasket and supposedly allows you to shred up to five sheets of standard 20lb 8.5x11" paper at a time. It outputs 1/4" strips without any cross cuts, not particularly small but enough to make life harder should anyone actually uncover and try to reconstruct your documents. It won't meet any legal requirements should you have them; you'll need to look into more industrial or higher end home models for that.

According to the box, you can shred up to 115 sheets per hour. That equates to 23 sets of five sheets each. However, according to the tiny amount of documentation that ships with the shredder, it's only rated for 10-20 passes per day and shouldn't be used for more than 3-5 minutes at a time with at least a 15 minute cool down period between uses. In reality, while the shredder did manage to shred five sheets at once, it had some difficulty. It was much louder and slower than with a set of three pages. I'd recommend sticking to three sheets at a go. I was also able to shred three sheets of 24lb paper at once but with the extra grinding and effort required for five sheets of 20lb paper. You might want to get a higher end model if you plan to shred much heavy paper. For my purposes, this model is more than sufficient; I'm not likely to use it for much more than a handful of paid bills each month.

While the silver-toned mesh wastebasket and matching shredder unit are both compact and surprisingly pleasing to the eye, I'd have preferred a solid basket. I'm not sure why the mesh bothers me so much as there's no chance of any paper to fall through the holes, but it does. There's also a wide lip extending out in a semi-circle in front of the shredder unit where loose strips of paper can fly out.

The paper feeder is strictly a top loading slot feeder; you'll have to hold the sheets perpendicular to the slot until it grabs. The shredder only sits about 15 inches tall so if it's on the floor and you're standing there feeding in paper it might be a bit tough on your back. If you have the space, consider keeping this shredder on a desk.

When you shred paper it remains attached to the shredder until you either shred more or remove the unit and clear away the paper. This is a bit of a pain but not really a problem. You also need to push down the paper frequently or empty the basket after each use; the paper tends to stick up and fill the available space even if you've only shredded a few sheets.

The Fellowes FS5M shredder supports paper with staples but not paper clips; I haven't had any need or opportunity to shred staples so I can't comment on how well it works. If you try shredding staples, I'd strongly recommend placing the paper in the feeder staple side first; since the very end of the paper doesn't make it all the way through the shredder it could get messy if staples are only shred halfway.

I've shredded about 60 sheets now and haven't had any jams. As long as I stick to two or three sheets at a time, the unit handles them quickly and relatively quietly (for a shredder). I still wouldn't shred next to someone taking a nap and realize that if you try to shred too much at once, this shredder will get significantly louder and make a substantially less pleasant grating noise.

It comes down to this: if you have extremely light shredding needs and want a compact, all-inclusive shredder for as little money as possible, the Fellowes FS5M shredder is a decent choice. If you need to shred more than a handful of pages a day or shred a lot of heavy paper or have specific legal requirements to shred documents, it's not going to meet your needs.