I researched this item on a few different online shopping sites and I agree with most of the comments. It is good for light use (although the first thing I did was shred two 30 gallon garbage bags full of stuff to purge lots of old documents). It powered through all of that with only one jam, and that was with more than the number of rated pages (10-12?). It is not as loud as I thought it would be, but I won't be running it inside while the kids are sleeping. I also like that it effectively has two on/off switches (one on the top for forward/reverse/off) and a standard on/off switch on the side. This, combined with the other safety features are great if you want an extra layer bit of protection if small kids are wandering around the house.Totally great for the price. Definitely recommend it.