Aurora AU120MA 120-Sheet Review

The Aurora AU120MA 120-Sheet is a top-of-the-line paper shredder that can take on an entire office's shredding needs. At first glance, it looks like any other office-sized paper shredder with a slot for papers and the usual buttons on top, but this one holds a secret. At the push of a button, the top of the unit pops off and reveals the automatic feed function. Here, you can place dozens and dozens of stacks of paper for the machine to methodically chew into bits.

Shredding Quality

The quality of a shredder is dependent on the security it provides, the number of pages it can shred at a time, how well it handles hard-to-shred things like envelopes, credit cards, and CDs, and the general robustness of the shredder itself. The Aurora AU120MA 120-Sheet excels in all these tests.

The Aurora scored the highest we've ever seen in the shredding quality category. It shreds paper into minuscule micro-cut bits that provide the highest level of security. Being able to shred 120 pages at once obliterates all other shredders we've tested. Shredding junk mail, envelopes, and credit cards is just fine.

The Aurora has one slight drawback: it doesn't shred CDs. It also feels strong in its shredding. It doesn't slow down or overheat easily, proving itself to be the best of the best in terms of shredding quality. Although it claims that it can only shred stapled documents up to ten pages in length, we tested its ability to shred 30 stapled pages, and it did so without a hitch. Our tester Liber has some glowing praise for the Aurora: “Shredding documents has never given me joy before…but that changed with watching this machine chew through hundreds of sheets of paper without me having to lift a finger.”

Speed

We measure our speed metric from a few different angles. First, we tested how quickly each model could shred through one sheet of paper, followed by a timed 20-sheet shred. Lastly, we calculated the maximum capacity shred rate by taking the advertised sheet capacity and dividing it by the time it took to shred that many pages.

The Aurora AU120MA 120-Sheet falls behind just our top performer in this case. It takes 9 seconds to go through just one sheet of paper. It went through the stack of 20 sheets in 31 seconds.

But it makes up for it with its maximum capacity rate. Its ability to shred 120 pages in three and a half minutes without interruption turns the tide and pushes the Aurora high into the ranks of speedy shredders.

Noise

Depending on your office environment, additional noise might be a problem, or it could blend in with the existing cacophony. The Aurora is easy to recommend in this regard because it is relatively quiet from an overall sound volume level, but also, the sounds it does generate are nowhere near as aggressive as some of the smaller shredders.

While measuring the sound volume, we got just 65 dB from a foot and a half away. This volume is a little quieter than a normal conversation between two people and very similar to a standard office environment. The pitch of the sound also matters, and the Aurora produces a low, deep noise that is much easier to ignore than some of the smaller shredders we've tested.

Ease of Use

Ease of use is, in general, how easy it is to load the shredder, whether there are any difficulties in emptying it and disposing of the shreds, how easy it is to navigate the user interface, and how easy the shredder is to store. The Aurora does well in most of these tasks. Because of its auto-feed function, it is exceptionally easy to load paper into the device. The drawer that accumulates the paper waste is easy to remove and empty. It has only three buttons, 'POWER', 'FWD', and 'REV', making it quite easy to use. Once the power button is pressed, the Aurora will automatically consume and eviscerate any paper placed into its maw.

The biggest drawback here is the size of the unit. It is about the size of a medium suitcase, so it is not gigantic, but it is also not something you'd want to maneuver your chair around all the time. It is on casters, so moving it around is easy enough, but it isn't something I'd want under my desk.

Should You Buy the Aurora AU120MA 120-Sheet?

If you can afford it, this top-of-the-line shredder is truly the best one we've ever tested. It got top marks in all of our tests and has useful features that none of the other shredders we tested have. I love watching it shred through 120 pages at once; it's very cathartic.

There are rare cases where I would say not to buy this shredder: If it won't fit in your office, if you shred CDs frequently, or if you just plain don't shred documents that often.

What Other Paper Shredder Should You Consider?

If absolute speed is what you care most about, the Fellowes Powershred 99Ci technically is faster than the Aurora, but practically, you will spend more time loading paper into it, and it is almost twice the price. If the Aurora 120 Sheet is more shredder than you need, the smaller Aurora AU1230XA Anti-Jam 12-Sheet Crosscut is also quite good but less secure as a cross-cut model.