M-8C

Short version: a terrific shredder that powers through the pages with no trouble, and can even shred your credit card. I paid just £39.95 and it is an absolute bargain which will save me untold thousands compared with my previous reckless behaviour. I had around 800 sheets to shred and this shredder powered through them. Longer version: I have files and files at home - bank statements, insurance, tax returns - plus lots of work crap from the endless cycle of meetings. Every couple of years I have a major tidy up, filing new stuff and clearing out anything old. That creates a big pile of paper which I used to throw in the recycling. Yes, I was one of THOSE people, who can't understand how their identity got stolen and wants to blame the bank for their own incompetence. In short, I was a bell-end. Thankfully, it never happened. I got away with it and it's time to shut the stable door with the horse still inside. Shred everything. Don't worry about deciding whether or not something contains personal information, just shred the lot. Just before I stopped being a bell-end, I though 'I bet a proper shredder is going to cost quite a bit, maybe I shouldn't bother.' What a pillock. I paid £39.95 for a highly rated shredder, and the other customers are spot on - it does a proper job and is a true bargain. It is basically a shredder unit sat on its own bin, although it looks a lot nice than that description suggests. It claims to take up to 8 pages or 70gsm paper. As a keen reviewer I couldn't resist testing it to the limit. I got to 10 paper of 80gsm with no trouble. It really struggled on 11 pages and I had to jig backwards and forwards a bit to get it all down. After 5 minutes of action it will give itself a 30 minute break to cool down. Five minutes will get you through several hundred sheets, so it is plenty of time. Also, it is sensing the temperature, so the 5 and 30 minutes are approximate - it will stop when it is too hot, however long it has been going, and restart when it thinks it is ready. My 11-page test made it need a rest, which seemed only reasonable. Safety-wise it covers all the bases - master on/off switch, a lock switch, and then a forward / neutral / reverse switch. So to get it going from scratch that is three switches. HOWEVER, you can then leave them all on and it will sit there waiting to detect paper. Or your cat's tail. So don't do that. Move it into neutral then use the lock switch. It has one more safety feature: if you lift the head off the bin, it will cut out. It has a recessed pressure switch so that it knows if it is on the bin. Obviously you'd put it in neutral first before lifting the head off. Probably. Pricing: The Amazon price for this shredder has ranged between £39.99 and £70.04 in the past 12 months, with about 60% of the time at £39.99. If it is higher than that as you read this, add it to your wish list and check back regularly. It is delivered in its branded box with no Amazon over-box, so bear that in mind if you are buying it as a gift. Wait, why would this ever be a gift? Anyway, top notch, 5-stars, would buy again in a heartbeat, etc.

My new shredder arrived yesterday, and as we had a huge pile of shredding to be done, of course I had to get it set up and working as soon as possible! The first thing I noticed (once it was unpacked and plugged in) was the noise - the low level of the noise! Our previous shredder had been quite loud, especially towards the end of its life. This one has a hum to it, and I was amazed how little the noise changed even when shredding staples and credit cards. We had both of these in the pile of shredding to be done, just by coincidence, and it was a great way to test out the unit. I wondered how it would handle the staples, even though it was designed to shred them, but it didn't even blink! The noise was literally no different with just the paper to the stapled paper. The thicker the wedge of paper added to the slot, the deeper the noise became, but that is just because the motor was working that bit harder. Nothing to worry about, though. The shredder worked beautifully, and it happily shredded through all of the paperwork which had piled up since our last one gave up! I did the shredding in two sessions, simply due to the amount there was to be done, and I did not want to burn it out in the first evening. The temperature control light flickered a few times when shredding the thicker piles of paper, but nothing to cause any concern, and it merrily chomped its way through all that I fed into it. I emptied the shredder bin twice, and oiled the blades each time, as recommended. The oil was a bit messy, but that is not a review of the shredder, more the oil bottle. The window in the front of the bin is more of a smoked plastic than clear, so it is more difficult to see the paper level than perhaps it needed to be, but it was clear enough when it needed emptying, I think. Just being aware of how much paper you have shredded will help to not overload the bin. We noticed with our previous unit that if the bin was not emptied when it was getting full, the shredder blades clogged with paper if shredding continued,and I can see that this would be the case with this item as well. Therefore, little and often emptying would be advisable, even if the bin is only half full, and then you could oil the blades every other time it was emptied. For the price (I paid £42), this is an excellent bit of kit. I looked long and hard at the various options, and seriously considered spending half as much again for the 22l bin of the next model up, but I am glad I went with this unit. The bin is not massive, but for general everyday shredding which has not been piling up for a month (and had hubby's business chequebook added to the pile with who knows how many pages in it!!), it will be more than adequate. The noise level is perfectly acceptable, and feels to me like it is on the quiet side, which is great. I would currently agree with the "powershred" label, as it certainly seemed to power through everything fed into it. I am very pleased with my purchase, and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy or replace a home shredder, especially if you do not wish to pay lots of money for one.

A considerably quieter and perfectly competent replacement for an older shredder which suddenly slowed to a crawl after years of constant neglect. Learning from the past, I also ordered lubricating oil and shredder maintenance sheets together with the shredder. Unlike our previous shredder, this one also claims to cope with staples, although we always remove them first anyway. It has a number of safety features which might prove particularly attractive for users who need to keep it instantly accessible and also have nosey children with little fingers! Note that the claimed number of sheets shredded at a time can be misleading as this figure tends to be based on a lighter weight paper than most stationery. But for normal everyday non-business shredding, this is perfectly adequate and good value. The only obvious improvement, if you needed to move it about frequently, would be some carry handles moulded into the sides of the plastic bin.

I purchased this shredder for my mother as she is a stroke survivor and is severely disabled. What could be easier than putting a sheet of paper and the shredder doing what it's meant to do, shred! After about 8 months my Mother asked me to empty her shredder as it was getting full and as I lifted the top part off I hear something rattling, which I thought was odd. A piece of plastic fell out, it was part of the surround to the blades broken away and once the first part came out it literally disintegrated and fell apart. I can tell you hand on heart that my mother could not have mistreated the unit as she couldn't even lift the top part off by herself, I even have to oil it for her. She only used the unit once or twice a week and it broke for no apparent reason! I contacted Fellowes and fairdo's, after a bit of faffing around sending them details they sent a replacement. This replacement unit has now developed the same rattle and has stopped working after about 3 months and I'm now going to have to go through the nonsense again. This really isn't very good, the components within the unit are sub par and not fit for purpose. Another point is, the unit is described as being able to handle 8 sheets which just isn't true. it struggles with around 4 sheets and runs very slowly. Update 29th November Our 2nd replacement that we received September 22nd broke down today after 2 months. We hardly used it and the plastic surrounding the blades just starts breaking and rattling until it becomes unusable. I emailed Fellowes to tell them we will never use their products again and they offered me a free upgrade to a better model. I read the reviews and it is just as bad as this one, so I am just going to purchase a different shredder, this has gone n too long! I notice other reviewers have tried to contact Fellowes, the email address is cs-uk@fellowes.com

Unusually I'm writing this review as I'm shopping for a replacement. Previous shredders I'd bought would go for a couple of years and then break, oftentimes the motor simply burnt out. I bought this item in January 2015. It died in June 2024. I oiled it periodically, but otherwise it's been used regularly: sometimes lightly, and sometimes as if it was the fall of Saigon. It'll tackle stapled paper, and you can push the boundary of the 8-sheet limit to some degree, as if you get too carried away there is a safety cut out. Best not to though as it can be a pain to unblock it, especially if the reverse function can't clear it. Wife once passed me an envelope to shred that had receipts in it. Printer just stopped. Turned out to be because she'd put a 20p piece in that envelope too. Don't try and shred a coin... Cause of death of this shredder appeared to be a failing of the plastic holding the underside of the head housing. The loose screws found their way into the moving parts of the shredder. I'm putting it down to 'old age' rather than a failure of design. Bottom line - thoroughly recommended. My Amazon orders show me I paid £44.99 back in 2015, and as I write the model is on sale (at a discount from RRP of £58.99) for £44.96. So it cost me less than a fiver a year and is cheaper . That looks like an absolute bargain.

This is the Shredder you need,Top Quality and very Quiet compaired to many ive had over the years,its sturdy and not a cheap make like i just bought and gave away,it minces up the paper etc very well.nice crossways shred so your important things arent recognisable afterwards.Does Credit cards the lot.well worth the money.Great service on top.Very Happy with results.thanks.

I bought this Like New, the machine itself i would rate 5/5. Does the job well but my 3/5 rating is due to the condition of what I received. Firstly, the button switch was for some reason separately in another bag. When I inspected to see how the clasp would fit the switch, it snapped off! Luckily it still clasped the edges (it has 4 edges) with the remaining 3 sides so it still fit the switch. Otherwise super glue would be the only way. Not sure why this was separated to begin with and why it was so fragile. Secondly, I gave a wipe of the inner drum and saw some yellow staining. Don't really want to think about it too much (!). The plug had an orange sticker over the wire and that whole 20cm part of the cable feels sticky. I've tried wiping that too with wet wipe but it still remains mysteriously sticky. Aside from this, there was only 2 scraps of paper stuck in its teeth so i hope it was only lightly used as advertised. --- The product itself is good, it can cut 8 pages as advertised. I tried 14 (accidentally thinking it was 8) so it struggled. But the reversing made it easy to unstuck it. Phew.

First in my overall review for the product, remember that all shredders need to be used in accordance with instructions - if it says 8 sheets maximum, don't put in ten and hope for the best - something will jam or break. This is a great shredder for moderate needs - typical Home Office stuff, but with ability to shred a lot of stuff so long as you are sensible about how much you put in at a time. I just need to run it 3 or 4 times a week, typically and not for doing much at a time and for that it's neat, quiet and performs a great job of cutting papers and credit cards into tiny bits. It's my third Fellowes shredder over many years - the second one failed after about 5 months - bought ion Jan 2020 and problem occurred in June. Conscious that the cost of returning it for repair was going to be high -and a pain as I didn't have the box - I tried to repair it myself (taking great care, of course), found that a small plastic disk that rotates against a spindle to drive the shredding device was coming off the end of the spindle (don't know why or how, or what bit was missing, but it wasn't possible for me to fix it. Contacted Gemma at Fellowes Customer Service and sent a couple of photos and immediately she offered a replacement and shipped it same day. It arrived today and it's in place! So superb service by Gemma and keeps me as a Fellowes fan.