Best String Trimmer (Battery Powered)? EGO, Milwaukee, DeWalt, Ryobi, Kobalt, Makita, Atlas, ECHO

a lot of people requested a review on battery-powered string trimmers because they are ready to upgrade so the question is which string trimmer is the best and which one is going to be worth the money well let's find out in the first test we'll see which trimmer offers the most startup torque then we'll see which trimmer is the fastest cutting through some tall grass we'll see which trimmer holds the most trimmer line we'll also compare total run time and how long it takes to recharge the batteries at a price of 230 dollars for the battery the charger and the string trimmer is this greenworks brand the greenworks comes with a 4 year warranty includes a brushless motor includes a 4 amp hour pro grade 60 volt battery load and go trimmer head for super fast hassle free reloading on the fly we're going to test that greenwork says that their brushless string trimmer motor provides more power and performance than a gas powered trimmer grindworx claims that their brushless trimmer motor produces the same power as a 30cc engine the nice thing about the green works is you have a lot of flexibility to move the handle around to position it comfortably it also includes a shoulder strap it claims to offer 110 minutes of run time once you activate the trigger on a tool the amount of time it takes before the tool gets to work is known as reaction time and the green works is in no hurry to get busy the greenwork string trimmer is made in china the weight of a trimmer especially on the trimmer head can really impact the ease of use and user fatigue with the battery installed the back of the trimmer weighs 9.45 pounds and the trimmer head weighs just over four pounds for a total weight of 13.5 pounds there's no string in the trimmer and the sound meter is at 20 inches from the handle and the green works is pretty loud at 91.4 decibels many brushless motors fall flat on their face unless they can get some momentum before encountering the load unfortunately the green works doesn't make enough torque to get the one pound test device spinning at a price of 250 for the battery the charger and the string trimmer is this ryubi brand the kit includes a 40 volt 4 amp hour battery the trimmer shaft is made of carbon fiber you can also buy other attachments for the ruby including an edger blower pole saw and many more tools cutting width can be adjusted from 13 to 15 inches 5-year tool warranty and 3-year battery warranty all the trimmers we'll be testing are designed for 0.95 or 0.80 trimmer line 2-speed transmission the ruby is made in vietnam while there's still some trigger-like with the roby it's not nearly as bad as the green works and the trimmer head on the robe is a lot lighter than the green works at 3.42 pounds and the overall trimmer weight is 3 pounds lighter than the green works at 10.6 pounds and the robie makes less noise than the green works at 87.2 decibels and the roby performed very well at 39 inch pounds also the price of 250 the same price of the roby is this echo brand which includes a battery and charger the echo comes with a 2.5 amp hour battery and has a brushless motor speed feed 400 cutting head reloads in seconds without disassembly variable speed trigger for ultimate power control up to 28 minutes of run time with a two and a half amp hour battery includes a year warranty the echo is made in china two speed transmission the trigger light with the echo seems just about the same as the green works so roby is the best so far the trimmer head on the echo is almost as light as the robie at 3.47 pounds for a total weight of 10.6 pounds the echo is the quietest yet at 82.5 decibels the echo did a very respectable job at 30 inch pounds and a third string trimmer we'll be testing at 250 dollars to include the battery in the charger is made by cobalt includes an 80 volt a 2.5 amp hour battery up to 16 minutes of runtime on a fully charged two and a half amp hour battery five-year limited warranty on the tool three years on the battery adjustable cutting width lets you select either 14 or 16 inches brushless motor delivers more power and torque easy to use rapid reload head high load speed selection allows for greater control with a cobalt you do have quite a bit of area to move the handle back and forth to find the right position unlike the other brands the cobalt has the electric motor near the trimmer head the cobalt is made in china the cobalt has less trigger lag than the echo but more trigger lag than the roby even though the cobalt has a motor on the head the trimmer head is just a little bit heavier than aerobie in the echo the total weight is 10.8 pounds and the cobalt is relatively quiet at 77.7 decibels unfortunately the cobalt really struggled to make low end torque 10 inch pounds the next brand we'll be testing is the atlas brand which is sold at harbor freight unfortunately you can't buy the battery charger and string trimmer as a kit you have to buy them separately the total price for all three is 260 dollars instead of three years or five years like the other brands a harbor freight brand stands behind their product for 90 days brushless motor cuts better than professional gas equipment we're gonna test that rapid reload head winds new line in seconds just like the cobalt the atlas also has the electric motor at the trimmer head provides more power and longer life variable speed trigger for greater control and more run time instant electric start and stop the harbor freight atlas is made in china the other trimmers we've looked at have high low ranges the atlas just has one range the trigger lag with the atlas seems to be about the same as the cobalt unfortunately the trimmer head on the atlas is pretty heavy at 4.2 pounds the total weight of the trimmer is 9.25 and the atlas isn't quite as yet at 74.9 decibels the outlets performed about the same as the cobalt at nine inch pounds at a price of 299 dollars for the battery the charger and the string trimmer is this milwaukee brand includes an 8 amp hour battery and a rapid battery charger designed for landscape maintenance professionals has a power to clear thick brush balance design which increases user control includes a quick lock system which allows you to use an edger articulating hedge trimmer or pull saw attachments includes a three year warranty for the battery as well as the tool brushless motor delivers up to 6200 rpm reaches full throttle in under one second the milwaukee is made in mexico and the milwaukee's done a great job with the electronics the electric motor has instant throttle response just like a gas trimmer and the milwaukee uses a steel drive shaft which adds weight to the trimmer and the milwaukee's trimmer head is also pretty heavy at 4.2 pounds the total weight is 11.8 pounds or almost two pounds lighter than the green works the milwaukee is pretty loud at 89.4 decibels and the milwaukee performed about the same as the robie at 39 inch pounds at a price of 300 for the trimmer the battery and the charger is this ego power plus 16 inch power load string trimmer it claims to be the world's most advanced trimmer includes a 56 volt 4 amp hour battery five year tool warranty through your battery warranty includes line iq technology auto sensing technology monitors and feeds the length of the line patented parallel technology automatically winds your trimmer line it has a two speed digital selector the ego is made in china vigo has decent throttle response but definitely not nearly as fast as the milwaukee diego has the motor on the trimmer head which weighs it down quite a bit at over 4.5 pounds the most yet 12 pounds of total weight on the trimmer viggo is pretty quiet at 81.1 decibels vigo did a pretty good job at 26 inch pounds or 13 inch pounds less than the milwaukee at a price of 320 for the battery of the charger and the string trimmer is this dewalt brand the kit includes a 9 amp hour 60 volt battery high efficiency brushless motor quick load spool for convenient and efficient re-spooling universal attachment capability to accept additional tool pieces variable speed trigger with high and low speed control to optimize power and run time the dewalt includes a 3-year warranty the dewalt's electric motor is located up by the operator there's a shaft running from the motor to the trimmer head the dewalt is made in mexico 4650 rpm and low 5 800 and high and the throttle response of the dewalt seems almost as fast as the milwaukee dewalt has done a great job with the trimmer head only weighing three and a half pounds the total weight is 12.6 pounds the dewalt is just as loud as the milwaukee at 89.5 decibels and the dwelt has a lot of grit at 73 inch pounds very impressive and the most expensive string trimmer we'll be testing at a price of 400 for just the tool and not the battery and charger is made by makita the makita comes right out of the box with the brush cutter hardware installed on the trimmer head it's designed for commercial applications it's the only string trimmer in the lineup that has a one piece solid steel drive shaft makita claims this will provide less vibration and longer durability for life unfortunately the makita is the only brand that does not include a rapid re-spooling head 36 volt brushless motor includes three speed options 4 600 5500 and 7000 rpm includes a reverse rotation function which allows the operator to quickly clear the trimmer head of entangled grass and weeds the magetta includes a vibration dampener it claims to have power equivalent to a 30cc gas trimmer comes with a pretty nice shoulder strap to test the makita i'll be using two five amp hour batteries three year warranty the makita is made in china and makita does have very quick throttle response but it does take a little bit longer to spin up compared to the milwaukee even though the makita has a large debris shield in the solid shaft the trimmer is pretty light at only 3.6 pounds on the trimmer head and the makita is the lightest in the lineup at only nine pounds and the makita is almost as loud as the dewalt at 88.4 decibels and the high revving makita moves in the second place behind the dewalt at 48 inch pounds if you're looking for a trimmer that makes great torque when it's spooling up the dewalt came in on top at 73 inch pounds the makita performed well at 48 milwaukee and ryobi 39 inch pounds trimmer head weight can have a huge impact on efficiency using the trimmer as well as user fatigue the roby has the lightest trimmer head of 3.4 pounds echo is pretty light at 3.5 dewalt makita 3.6 pounds and the lightest trimmer in the lineup is the makita at only 9 pounds atlas is pretty light at 9.3 echo 10.6 ryobi 10.7 and cobalt 10.8 pounds if you're looking for the quietest trimmer the harbor freight atlas is very quiet at 74.9 decibels cobalt is 77.7 decibels ego 81.1 and echo 82.5 a debris shield can really help prevent getting hit by little stones as well as grass clippings the makita's on the left and the atlas is on the right and makita offers a lot more protection at 15.75 inches of width milwaukee dewalt and cobalt also offer great protection at a foot or even more once you activate the trigger on a tool the amount of time it takes before the tool gets to work is known as reaction time and the green works is in no hurry to get busy at a half a second reaction time the green works is finally up to full speed in 1.3 seconds and the roby has a lot faster reaction time than the green works at 0.2 seconds and is fully spooled up in only 1.1 seconds and the echo is a little bit slower to kick in than the ryobi at 0.3 seconds and is 1.2 seconds to spool up all the way the cobalt's the same as the echo at 0.3 seconds but needs 1.4 seconds to get up to full speed and the atlas also needs 0.3 seconds to kick in and is really slow to spool up at 1.8 seconds the slowest yet and the milwaukee showed up in racing mode with reaction time of 0 seconds and it's up to full speed in 0.5 seconds very impressive the ego has a great reaction speed at 0.1 seconds and it's up to full speed in one second the dewalt's reaction time is the same as the ego's at 0.1 seconds and it spools up just a little bit faster at 0.95 seconds and the makita's reaction time is almost as fast as the milwaukee's at 0.05 seconds and it's up to full speed in 0.95 seconds if you're looking for a trimmer that has a reaction time that's as good as a gas trimmer the milwaukee is the best in the lineup the makita is almost as fast as 0.05 seconds ego and dewalt 0.1 seconds milwaukee is also the fastest tool to get up to full speed at 0.5 seconds makita and dewalt finished in the distance second at 0.95 seconds and ego finished in fourth at one second so the way things have played out this time is that higher voltage string trimmers typically take longer to react to the trigger being squeezed and then take longer to get up to speed have you ever been just about finished with your yard when your trimmer runs out of line i have 20 feet of 0.095 trimmer lines so let's see how much trimmer line the green works will hold all you have to do is line up the green lines to feed string into the trimmer it's very easy to respool the green works and there's a total of six feet and six inches of leftover trimmer line so the green works holds 13.5 feet with the robe you just line up the two arrows you don't have to use a tool that comes with the robe but it does speed up the process and there's seven feet of trimmer line left over so the roby holds 13 feet or almost as much as the green works the echo has the speed feed 400 head just line up the arrow with the eyelet and you're all set and the echo holds a lot more trimmer line than the green works in the roby at 20 feet just line up the arrows with the cobalt and the cobalt has a lot smaller trimmer head than most of the other brands and the cobalt only holds nine feet of trimmer line the trimmer head on the atlas looks identical to the cobalts just like the cobalt the atlas only holds nine feet of trimmer line line up the red lines with the milwaukee and the milwaukee holds 20 feet of trimmer line and has room for more so let's try 30 feet and 30 feet of trimmer line is barely adequate for the milwaukee so milwaukee takes the lead the ego is extremely easy and there's nothing to line up the ego will even spool up the trimmer head for you by pressing the green button that's on the trimmer head assembly and it only took 15 seconds to add 30 feet of trimmer line to the ego which is the fastest yet line up the two lines with the dewalt and feed the trimmer line and the dewalt holds 20 feet of trimmer line or about 10 feet less than the milwaukee in the ego unfortunately you'll have to disassemble the head on the makita however you can purchase an echo speed feed replacement head if you're looking to upgrade the trimmer head on the makita is a lot smaller than most of the other brands and it holds right at 16 feet of trimmer line a large trimmer line capacity will help you avoid unnecessary pit stops and the milwaukee and the eagle offer the most trimmer line capacity at 30 feet echo and dewalt hole 20 and makita 16 feet of trimmer line all the trimmer batteries are fully charged there's a couple pieces to the next test the first part is to cut the trimmer line three inches too long and then as the trimmer whips the trimmer line it'll remove the slack from inside the trimmer head unfortunately the green works keep stalling out and it just won't cut the trimmer line if the trimmer has a sharp object the trimmer line becomes too short and often times the trimmer line has to be dispensed by hand i'm going to shorten the trimmer line on the green works to three quarters of an inch unfortunately the trimmer line is just too short for the green works to advance the trimmer line let's see how it performs at two inches two inches took some effort but the green works did advance the trimmer line and aerobie made very easy work of cutting the excess trimmer line it did take quite a bit of effort but the robe did advance the trimmer line from three quarters of an inch just fine unfortunately the cobalt just wasn't able to dispense the trimmer line starting at three quarters of an inch however the cobalt did just fine dispensing the trimmer line from two inches the atlas trimmer head looks just like the cobalt and it performed about the same just like the cobalt the atlas wasn't able to dispense the trimmer line from three quarters of an inch but it was able to dispense more trimmer line from two inches and the echo did just fine trimming off the excess trimmer line the echo needed several bumps but it did successfully dispense more trimmer lines from three-quarters of an inch the waukee has definitely done the best so far dispensing trimmer line from three-quarters of an inch it took four taps in about two seconds the ego has a very unique technology for advancing trimmer line without bumping the trimmer head i had to start and stop the trimmer several times but it did successfully advance the trimmer line from three quarters of an inch and the dewalt only needed three taps in order to advance the trimmer line and it took about 1.2 seconds and the makita made very easy work of trimming off the excess trimmer line the milwaukee and the dewalt definitely made a lot easier work of dispensing the trimmer line from three quarters of an inch if you're looking for a string trimmer that's very efficient at dispensing trimmer line when the line becomes extremely short most of the brands are very capable of dispensing the trimmer line at three quarters of an inch with the turbo line at three quarters of an inch the dewalt made the quickest work of dispensing the trimmer line in only 1.2 seconds with three trimmer head bumps the milwaukee only needed four bumps in two seconds the echo also performed well at six seconds in makita seven okay the grass is about 10 to 12 inches tall and i'm going to use an 8 by 24 box to compare the performance of each of the brands and the green roof got off to a decent start but i pushed it a little bit too hard and it stalled out after seven seconds unfortunately it took another seven seconds before it power up again and the green work stalled out a total of seven times during the test it took a total of two minutes and 45 seconds the green works actually did a better job of dispersing the grass clippings with the roby the clippings gathered on the left side of the debris shield when sweeping from right to left while the roby did install it did lose a lot of rpm when i pushed it the roby didn't stall out which allowed it to cut 192 square feet of grass about 40 seconds faster than the green works and the cobalt has quite a bit more power than the roby the trimmer did a much better job of keeping the trimmer head spinning near peak rpm while the debris shield did a great job of blocking grass clippings from hitting me the clippings got out in front of the trimmer on the left or right swing and slow the trimmer's cutting speed i like the cobalt quite a bit but i don't like having the weight of the motor way out front and a cobalt is the fastest yet at a minute and 51 seconds and once the outlets gets up to speed it has really good power and holds rpm it seems to have the same power as the cobalt but the smaller debris shield prevented the grass clippings from bunching up out in front of the trimmer this really helped it make a lot faster progress however i was getting hit with a lot more grass clippings compared to the cobalt and the atlas is the fastest yet at 90 seconds and the echo has a very small debris shield which helped it cut the tall grass efficiently however i did end up getting hit by a lot more grass clippings compared to the greenworks ryobi and the cobalt the trimmer motor seems to have plenty of power for the tall grass 95 seconds is almost as fast as the atlas and the milwaukee seems to have way more power than the previous brands however the milwaukee does vibrate quite a bit more than the other brands and that's pretty noticeable i pushed the milwaukee a little too hard near the end of the test and it stalled 85 seconds is the fastest time yet the most noticeable thing about the ego is all the weight out in front of the trimmer head also of all the trimmers i ended up getting more grass clippings hitting me in the face compared to the other brands however the ego has plenty of power and performed very well at 89 seconds the dewalt dominated the off the line torque test and it dominated this test too the trimmer did by far the best at maintaining a very high rpm no matter how hard i pushed it and it's by far the most powerful in the lineup and finished the test in only 68 seconds very impressive the makita's massive debris shield did the best of all the brands at protecting the operator from grass clippings but that probably slowed it down quite a bit as the grass clippings got in the path of the trimmer the makita is definitely the most comfortable and the smoothest trimmer in the lineup 80 seconds for a second place finish if it's all about cutting speed the dewalt is by far the fastest at 68 seconds the makita was 12 seconds behind the dewalt at 80 seconds milwaukee 85 ego 89 in atlas 90 seconds tool vibration can cause hand discomfort or even swelling of the hands i tested the vibration without any trimmer line inside the trimmer head to prevent that from throwing off the results and the makita is amazingly smooth with very little tool vibration the milwaukee is a great tool in many ways but the vibration is very harsh if you're buying a string trimmer kit the battery capacity is something to consider the ego offers the most battery capacity at 224 watt hours greenworks offers 216 cobalt atlas dewalt and makita 180 watt hours all the batteries are fully charged so let's test the total runtime of the trimmers and the makita is the first to run out of juice in only 10 minutes echo has a smallest battery capacity of 126 watt hours and lasted 14 minutes milwaukee's 144 watt hour battery lasted 16 minutes dewalt has a 180 watt hour battery and that only lasted 17 minutes ryobi lasted six minutes longer than the dewalt at 23 minutes cobalt has the motor mounted on the string trimmer head which offers a lot more efficiency than the rear mounted motors with all the hardware running through the shaft 29 minutes green works at atlas gave up at 31 and a half minutes unlike the other brands eagle lowers the rpm on the trimmers when high rpm isn't needed to conserve the battery 40.5 minutes in most residential applications running a trimmer at full rpm non-stop just isn't very realistic actually run time would be two three or even four times longer however at non-stop wide open throttle the ego has the longest run time at 40.5 minutes greenworks an atlas lights of 31.5 cobalt 29 and roby 23 minutes battery charger noise seems like a minor detail but it might impact your buying decision in some circumstances and the green works is pretty loud and sounds a lot like a hair dryer the rugby makes a little bit less noise than the green works the cobalt may have a cooling fan that kicks in in some circumstances but the cobalt remained quiet during my testing the atlas makes a high-pitched squeal but it's a lot less noisy compared to the greenworks or the ryobi very little noise coming from the echo charger the milwaukee rapid charger makes a high pitched noise but it's not very loud and the ego charger is pretty loud no detectable sound coming from the dewalt charger even though the makita makes some fan noise it's a lot less noisy compared to the greenworks roby and the ego battery charge times varied a lot and some brands offer fast chargers that you can purchase that will speed up the charging process using the chargers that came in the kits theroby is the fastest at 44.5 minutes makita was almost as fast at 48.6 ego 49 and echo 57 minutes assigning an a through f rating is highly subjective however i've had a lot of viewers mention that they find this format very helpful the dewalt ego makita milwaukee narobi all had an average rating of a minus however any of these brands might perform poorly in a single category that you might find to be a deal breaker if i had to choose just one string trimmer i would definitely go with the dewalt it's an amazing machine very well designed and performs extremely well i also like the milwaukee makita as well as the ego those are also very good machines thanks to everyone that suggested this video as a reminder i buy all the products tested to ensure unbiased reviews so thanks again for supporting the channel also i'm really looking forward to reading your comments on future video ideas thanks so much for watching please take care and look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 2,162,870

Keywords: project farm, String Trimmer, cordless string trimmer, battery powered string trimmer, best string trimmer, best cordless string trimmer, best battery powered string trimmer, Lithium Ion String Trimmer, best lithium ion string trimmer, string trimmer review, cordless string trimmer review, battery powered string trimmer review, lithium ion string trimmer review, Milwaukee string trimmer review, dewalt string trimmer review, EGO string trimmer review, weed eaters

Id: j3ZCMcaAOVM

Length: 20min 33sec (1233 seconds)

Published: Sun May 15 2022