Dahle 20390 High Capacity Shredder Review

The Dahle 20390 is a high capacity shredder designed for use in the busiest offices and mail rooms, and anywhere else that large volumes of documents need to be destroyed on a regular basis. In the following review, we take a close look at this machine and present you with a list of what we consider to be its strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths:

1. The 20390 comes promised as a high capacity shredder, and it certainly is that. This machine can shred an astounding 60 sheets of paper at one time, and an equally impressive 28,000 sheets a day, thanks to the high volume, continuous use 2 ½ HP motor. There are few, if any, machines on the market with that kind of capability.
2. The 20390 features a nice wide 16" feed opening. This will get you through not only the vast majority of shred jobs (letter and legal size sheets), but can reasonably accommodate any if not all irregular sized documents as well, including computer printouts that contain sensitive data.
3. The operation of the 20390 is fully automatic, and gives you three options for mode of operation: auto on/off, continuous run, and reverse. The control panel is easy to use, and it is always easy to tell what mode the machine is in at any given time.
4. This machine includes some nice safety features. If the door to the shred bin is opened, for instance, the machine will shut off automatically. Also, there is an auto reverse function in the unlikely event there is an over feed.
5. This appears to us to be an extraordinarily well-built machine, and should provide you with years of service. The cutting heads are made of high-quality German steel and are guaranteed for the life of the machine. This is a fairly large machine, but the footprint isn't unreasonably high, and it should fit nicely into a larger business' mail room or wherever you take your shredding material. We also really appreciated that the 20390 comes on wheels, so you can move it around if need be. Pretty handy for a machine that weighs in at a hefty 400 lbs.

Weaknesses:

1. The one glaring weakness of the 20390 is that it is a mere quarter-inch strip cut shredder, and thus does not offer you what could be considered a terribly high level of security. It would be best suited for shredding sensitive (as opposed to confidential or secret) documents. This is, however, the same level of security that is offered by many outside shredding services, and you can do just as well, and save a great deal of money over a relatively short period of time, by doing your own in house shredding with a machine like the 20390.
2. Though the footprint, as we said, is pretty reasonable for such a high capacity machine, you will need to make sure that you have the room to keep the 20390 in a dedicated location. Though, as previously mentioned, it does come with wheels, you will not want to be put in the position of having to move this machine around too often, if you can help it. You will also want to make sure that you have the appropriate electrical power installed before this machine arrives.
3. You may want to consider placing this shredder in its own room or in an industrial location. This is an industrial shredder and as such is not going to be as quiet as most of the Dahle office series shredders. You will need to keep that in mind before placing a shredder like this in the middle of your quiet office environment.