Tesco Shredder? Why not? (Tesco 5 Paper Shredder)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Tesco 5 Paper Shredder
Date:	22/10/09 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap and fast. Cross cutting far more secure than strip shredding

Disadvantages: No manual setting so thin paper won't trip the AUTO switch. Quite noisy

I really am getting fed up with buying things, particularly electrical goods, which barely outlive their warranties. Most recent additions to this sad queue of hardware now at my local 'recycling amenity', or 'dump' as they're sometimes known are my wife's iPod dock (2 years old), and my ACCO Rexel Office Cross-Cut Shredder also barely making it past the yearling stage. If ever there was an exception to disprove the rule that 'you get what you pay for', look no further than the last item.

Not two years ago, having seen the sense of getting a 'cross-cut shredder' as opposed to the mere 'strip shredder' I'd previously owned, I rejected cheap offerings from the likes of Tesco et al, in favour of a make of 'proper office equipment'. After all, given domestic work volumes it'd last for ever, eh*?

Wrong - two years down the line, it's kaput and if you stop to work it out, having cost me about 50p a week to own.

(*I definitely am turning Canadian, eh - that's the second opinion in which I've ended a sentence with 'eh' isn't it, eh? Too many episodes of Ice Road Truckers, eh.)

Fired up with an attitude bordering on Marvin the Manic Robot, as in "Might as well buy junk, if that's all the life I can expect out of one. Life? Don't talk to me about life!", I buried my prejudices a bought a Tesco Cross-Cut Shredder after all.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

None too favourable, I have to say.

The mechanism sits atop a wire basket, which I thought was neater than the previous black plastic bin. Having first unpacked it, I tried to press the cutting head into place, at which the wire basket crumpled with a large dent in it. I'd been trying to fit the head assembly on the wrong way (there being no 'Go 50-50' or 'Phone a Friend' options).

This caused a slot in the mechanism to 'miss' a welded lug on the basket by a mere 180 degrees! Captain Cook wouldn't have been impressed - "Cape Horn laddie? What's that white bear doing over there then?"

When correctly fitted, this is the safety catch that allows the machine to be powered up till you try lifting it off the basket, when it stops for its own good and that of your finger tips. However, when done the wrong way, you end up pressing too hard on the basket below, hence the dent. This was easily rectified without having to take it to a body shop, but it left me feeling that the whole thing could be a bit flimsy if anything other than paper puts its weight on the lid. You certainly wouldn't want to put a casual foot on it whilst chatting up the new girl at the office water cooler.

To be fair, Tesco don't claim it to be office grade kit, and maybe for the price, I'm being unfair. At least this one is only going to cost me about 25p a week, even if it only last 12 months! Anything extra is pure bonus.

DOES IT WORK?

Yes, it does.

A4 it gobbles with gusto.

It readily recycles receipts, and....oh enough of the alliteration Chris.

Look it shreds stuff OK?

The cross cutting seems to take place every few inches, so an A4 sheet would probably be shredded into several hundred pieces, making gluing one back together a practical impossibility, especially if you give your 'shreddings' a good churn before the recyclers come to take them away. Incidentally, our borough won't let us include this as paper waste, since it blows everywhere as they decant it into their truck!

Anyone into selling stuff on e-Bay might welcome the opportunity to export the shreddings (of non-sensitive content I'd suggest) as packaging material to someone else.

In fact a good way to get rid of the shredding is to stuff great gobbets of it into the reply-paid envelopes of all those junk mail 'opportunities' you keep getting sent. Keep postmen in a job and get your own back - two for the price of one! Hey Presto!

I wouldn't say this is the quietest shredder I've ever had, but it is the cheapest at around 16 quid. However, I attribute the noise to the speed with which it shreds. One touch of the paper's edge into the "slot of doom" and it's gone.

Tesco say it's a 5-sheet shredder, but I feel it's struggling with 4. This may of course be down to paper density. It may well be OK with 5 sheets of typical low-GSM (Grams per Square Metre) photocopy paper, but quality letter paper in handfuls gives it a distinct problem. Luckily, it handles 3 of most anything so I'm not too worried.

Controls are minimal. You can leave it set to 'AUTO' so that it starts as you introduce a sheet into its waiting maws. Unlike my previous example, it has no manual 'ON' setting, so if the sheet of paper is too flimsy to work the trip-switch inside, you have to wait till it can be paired with something more substantial.

There's a 'REVERSE' setting to help with sorting out any paper jams you may get, like if you neglect to remove a strategically-placed staple, but that's about it.

Heh, it works, don't knock it. (You might dent it!)

Summary: 5-Sheet Cross Cut Shredder