The Ativa DQ80M Shredder --- A great shredder for your home!

We have had a new shredder in the new house for a little while now, and I felt that it was finally time to write a review about our experience with the shredder. The one we have been using is the Ativa DQ80M, which is produced through Office Depot, but is sold in many other places as well. This one was given to us by a family member, and we have been using it to shred up many documents that we just didn't need to keep around anymore. This includes receipts, credit card applications, and many other bills that have been paid off, and which we just don't need to access ever again. That is one of the main reasons to have a shredder like this, because it makes easy work of any paper documents you no longer need as well as credit cards which it shreds with ease. Using a shredder helps to insure that you can toss information like this with a lot less fear that someone else could ever use it against you.

This particular shredder is the DQ80M, which applies a diamond-cut to anything placed into the shredder throat. The throat (where you insert the paper) can take a full piece of paper lengthwise, and will take in the paper no matter what direction you feed it into the machine. The shredder can take up to 8 pages at a time, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it deals with the pages quickly, so you can turn around and use it several times within a few moments. On the top of the shredder is a slide switch which allows you to choose which setting you want to use during your shredding session. The modes for this shredder are auto, which allows you to automatically shred paper when the machine is plugged in, Reverse which allows you to rescind something you have fed into the machine, and of course Off, which stops your use of the shredder, and saves electricity when the machine is not in use.

When you pop open the box for the first time, the main components of the shredder have to be hooked up in order to get the best results. First you take the mesh basket and stand it up on end, and then you can take the shredder head (the top part) and place it on top of the basket. When you do that, the bottom part of the head plops out to reveal the motors/gears/shredder heads that will work through the paper. It's also a safety feature that keeps you from getting hurt if you pull off the head during the use. You can use the machine right out of the box, and as soon as you have plugged it in, it is ready to go. It is also presented in quite a safe manner, because the throat protects even little fingers from getting down into the motors. They suggest that every 2 to 3 weeks you should apply lubricant to the blades, and they provide several lubricant sheets to start you off with that. Once you have used those up, you should buy some of the Ativa shredder oil that you can find just about anywhere they sell shredders.

After shredding many hundreds of pages, as well as credit cards and stapled documents, the shredder has still continued to perform at peak performance levels. There hasn't been a single issue with it, and because we continue to follow the guidelines of using it carefully and adhering to the page limit, I expect that to continue. As with any shredder, it is always important to maintain it with the lubricant and to make sure that you are emptying out the bin and shutting it down regularly. With this shredder, the bin is made of a thick mess plastic that lets you see into it. This allows you to know when it is close to filling, and how often you need to empty out the basket. The shredder is relatively small in size, so it can fit under a desk or in a cabinet when it is not in use, and I think that if you care for your shredder properly, you are going to get very nice results from this shredder. If you are looking for a small shredder that you are going to use periodically for your home documents, the DQ80M could be the perfect shredder for your home.



Main Attributes:

*Shreds up to 8 pages at a time.
*Doesn't jam.
*Very safe to use in the home.
*Shreds paper, staples, and credit cards