Swingline ClassicCut Laser 12" Guillotine Trimmer - 9712

The chief strength of the 12" Classic Cut Laser may well be hinted at in the machine's name: the battery operated laser light that helps to ensure that all of your cuts are straight and accurate. This is a handy feature that more and more guillotine type paper trimmers are starting to include, so it's nice to see here. And hey, the batteries are even included, though they are just the "heavy duty" type, rather than alkaline. It is a nice touch, though.

The 12" CC Laser has a a better cutting capacity than a fair number of its competition as well as 15 sheets per lift. That 15 sheets is the rating for standard 20lb paper stock, and just like with any paper trimmer on the market, it probably goes without saying that your results will be slightly better of you operate just under the stated capacity, but 15 is a good number for medium duty work.

Another area in which this machine excels is in its overall build. The cutting surface is constructed of high quality wood, the cutting arm is made of metal, and there are even some handy rubber feet on the bottom of the machine that keep it from slipping around. Again, this appears to be an upgrade over most of the competition, and undoubtedly so among the 12" CC Laser's line mates at Swingline.

The 12" cutting blade gives you the ability to cut letter and legal sized sheets with ease, and also appears to be well constructed of high quality steel. The blade can handle normal paper as well as heavier stocks such as photos, laminated documents, and card stocks.

As far as safety features, the 12" CC Laser has a latch for the blade to keep it closed when the machine is not in use. There is also a protective guard rail that keeps the fingers that are holding the papers to the table safely away from the cutting blade.

The cutting table features an alignment grid as well as a ruler that measures in both metric and US measurements. Along with the laser light, these should make accurate and precise cuts as easy as can be.

The 12" inch blade can indeed deal with the most common paper sizes, but if you are going to be working with larger or custom sized documents, you might want to look into purchasing the 15" inch version instead.

The cutting capacity of 15 sheets per pass is good, but does sort of limit you to low to medium volume use. If you are working for a business or other organization that needs to pump out thousands or even hundreds of documents on even a weekly basis, you may want to look for a higher-capacity paper trimmer.