Powershred LX65 Cross Cut Shredder

The LX65 is the LX cross-cut model with SafeSense: the machine stops the cutters if hands make contact with the paper entry. On a shredder that will sit on the floor beside a desk in a room where people walk past it, that is the specification worth paying for.

The rest is a modest step up from the LX45 — ten sheets a pass rather than eight, a 6-gallon bin rather than 4.4, and three more pounds of machine. Notably it is the slower of the two at about 7 feet per minute against 12, so the extra sheets do not translate into a proportionally faster job.

Key Features

• SafeSense technology. The cutters stop if hands touch the paper entry — the feature that distinguishes this model from the LX45.
• Ten sheets per pass on 20 lb paper at DIN 66399 P-4.
• Cross-cut at 5/32 x 1 9/16 in (about 4 x 40 mm, roughly 157 mm² per particle).
• Nine-inch paper entry for legal and A4 unfolded.
• Shreds staples, paper clips and plastic credit cards.
• Six-gallon waste bin in a 10.25 x 15.38 x 16.69 in cabinet.
• Auto-reverse on jams, manual reverse and a bin-full indicator.
• 13.47 lb, with a one-year machine warranty and five years on the cutters.

The duty cycle is the same as the LX45's: six minutes on, twenty minutes off. That puts the LX65 firmly in personal-shredder territory despite the higher sheet count, and it is the honest limit to plan around. If you save paper up and shred it in sessions, neither of these two machines is the right buy — the LX200 and LX210 run for ten and twenty minutes respectively and cut considerably finer.

At about 157 mm² the particle sits close to the top of the P-4 class, which allows up to 160 mm². It is a legitimate P-4 machine, but it is at the coarse end of the level rather than the fine end, and that is worth knowing if you are comparing it against the LX micro-cut models at roughly 48 mm².

Specifications

Sheet ratings are Fellowes' figures for 8.5 x 11 in, 20 lb paper. Fellowes publishes no decibel value for this model, so no noise row is shown.

What's in the Box

Shredder with 6-gallon waste bin and power cord. Fellowes specifies its own non-aerosol vegetable-based shredder oil, part 35250, applied each time the waste bin is emptied. Aerosol lubricants must never be used in a shredder.

Who Should Buy This — and Who Should Not

Buy the LX65 for a home office or a shared room where safety around the machine matters — a house with children, a reception area, a space where the shredder sits at floor level and people move past it. SafeSense is a genuine feature rather than a marketing one, and the ten-sheet capacity and 6-gallon bin cover ordinary household and small-business paper comfortably.

Do not buy it for throughput. At about 7 feet per minute it is slower than the smaller LX45, and the six-minute duty cycle applies to both; if speed or session length is what you need, the LX200 and LX210 are the models to look at, and they cut three times finer as well. Do not buy it if you need CDs or DVDs destroyed, and do not buy it against a P-5 requirement — at roughly 157 mm² this is near the coarse end of P-4, not the fine end.