Greatest low price/low end shredder ever!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Shreds credit cards, shreds paper into small pieces, sleek styling, wheels, window in collection bin

Cons: Mildly loud operations from anti-jamming blades

The Bottom Line: 
This is the best mid-class paper shredder that you can buy cheaply. You won't be disappointed.

Author's Review
I bought the Royal 85X Paper shredder for my home office. Actually, I should have bought this a loooooong time ago. I've always had a lot of sensitive personal and business mail that I end up throwing away; not to mention I sometimes design DB schema on paper with my team and those get thrown away after my meetings. All-in-all, lots of things that needed to be turned into confetti that I don't want anyone else to know about... therefore the hunt for my perfect shredder began.

My old roommate had a standard low end paper shredder that fitted over common trashcans. While something like that would have been convenient, the one thing I disliked about those types of shredders were that they turned the paper into long strings of paper fettuccine that fills up the trash can really fast (since paper doesn't crush itself on its own weight). Also, with those small paper shredders you can only shred about 1-3 sheet of paper at a time, anymore and you risk jamming the wimpy blades.

My two criteria for finding a good paper shredder was that it had to be able to shred many sheets of paper and that it would provide its own storage bin. Let's face it, telling a trash can to dedicate itself to ONLY paper duties when you have all of the cans strategically placed in your house is just a waste of resources and space; but with over the trash can shredder attachments, you really have no choice unless you buy a new bin.

When I began my search, I was actually surprised at how advanced shredders have became. The higher end models can shred CDs and DVDs while most middle class models can shred credit cards and 10 sheets of paper.

After deciding that I did not need to shred CDs or pay $120+ for a paper shredder, I went with the Royal 85x model. The first one I bought from a mailer actually arrived broken. The unit was loud and it did not eat any papers or credit cards. If anything, the unit only nibbled away at what I was feeding it and it couldn't suck them in at all. I was really disappointed. Hopefully this doesn't mean that this shredder breaks easily. (The damages on the box and the machine came from a rough shipping route, I think.)

When I got the replacement model, things worked out great. Not only can this shredder take whatever paper and old credit cards I throw at it, it has the added bonus of turning everything into tiny 1 inch by 1/4 inch confetti. Now, instead of emptying the bin every 20-30 sheets, I don't have to empty it until about 100-140 sheets later using the same sized bin.

Some of the great features about this shredder not mentioned in the specs on this site:

- 4-Wheel attachments with locking ability for the two front wheels. Although this unit is not heavy, it's nice to know you have the option to wheel it around to move it instead of carrying it if you so choose. Locking the wheels will also prevent it from rolling around once you decide where it will sit.

- Small window in storage bin. There's a small clear window in the paper collection bin that lets you know when the confetti have piled up to the point where the bin needs to be emptied. This is just a smart move by Royal to include this window in there. The unit looks elegant and you don't have to open it every time you use it to see if it needs emptying.

- Long power cord. The unit comes with a power cord about 6 feet long. It's nice to have options.

- The unit has ready mode, off mode and reverse mode (in case paper does get jammed). All of them work very well. The great thing about this unit is that the blades are anti-jamming. If you look at it inside, you'll see that the way its designed is different from the low-end models.

Overall, if you have a small home office or if you're sensitive about the information you're throwing away in the trash, I would highly recommend this model. This was one of the cheaper, mid-classed models I found.

Royal also makes a 150X model that takes in 15 sheets at a time and eats CDs and credit cards if you need a shredder that tackles bigger jobs. However, to get the most bang for your buck, the 85x model is great.