Flymo Mini Trim ST Electric Grass Trimmer, 230 W, Cutting Width 21 cm

Product Information

This strimmer comes with a Power for Alliance 4Ah battery and charger and that means it can be used with any 18v garden tool from a variety of other manufacturers, including Bosch, Gardena and FlyMo. We tested various cordless strimmers with varied designs, features, and prices. Some were more suitable for heavy-duty use or bigger gardens, while others suited smaller gardens and budgets much better! Throughout this review, we assessed:

As the line wears down, new line needs to be fed into the cutting head from the spool. Sometimes this is done manually, but most cordless trimmers have a system in place to make this process automatic or semi-automatic. The Einhell GC-CT Cordless Strimmer comes with a 2.0Ah battery. Manufactured in Germany, this strimmer has been designed to keep lawn edges and flowerbeds tidy, whilst enabling you to cut hard-to-reach areas of your garden. The standard cut path on this trimmer is set to 30 cm, but you can reduce it to 25 cm simply by turning the line cutter around inside the blade guard. It’s a clever little extra that gives you more control over your cutting and takes some strain off the battery for higher efficiency. A cutting style that you get on with – as mentioned above, strimmers can use either cutting line or cutting blades. Keep this in mind when shopping, and decide if you’re more comfortable (physically and economically speaking) replacing wire or blades when it wears out.Something that I think makes this the best garden strimmer for edging is the guide wheel on the string end. You simply pull and twist the shaft to convert the trimmer from horizontal to vertical mode, and the wheel means you’re always at the optimum height for cutting. The strimmer itself is equally amazing. Although it’s quite heavy, it’s so well balanced that you don’t really notice the weight when using it. What you will notice is how superbly well it performs. Unlike most strimmers that have just one short line spinning around, The Ego ST1511E has two and a combined cutting area of 38cm. This not only speeds up the process noticeably but it also makes it more efficient, which in turn leaves more time for important leisure activities like lobbing water bombs at the kids. Its small unassuming cutter head, meanwhile, features a brushless motor that will likely go on running longer than you will. Line feed and blade replacements. It’s useful if a blade strimmer comes with spare blades, so you don’t run out if one breaks in the middle of a job. You should be able to get a new spool of line for a line strimmer or replace the whole head. With both types it's helpful if the spare blades or line can be stored on the tool. This new 18v cordless strimmer comes with a number of alluring features including an adjustable spring-loaded shaft that accommodates a variety of user heights, an ergonomic non-variable speed trigger system with a safety on/off switch replete with battery gauge and a five-position handle for different arm lengths. Safety: The main safety feature strimmers can have is a safety switch alongside the trigger. Models with a safety switch – and even better, an ambidextrous and easily accessible one – we deemed safer, so we rated them higher.

Ah batteries will greatly extend running time, but weigh and cost considerably more, so they’re not always the best option. The blades are replaceable, and generally you’ll need to replace a blade after every 2 hours of use. This is because they can get damaged, and occasionally they’ll come off and get lost in the garden. At 7.7 kilos, this model is pretty heavy but thankfully it comes with a shoulder strap which, when attached to the balance point, helps reduce the weight on the front so that it effectively floats just above ground level. Just be sure to have the heavyweight battery in place when adjusting the pivot point. The loop handle, meanwhile, comes with a bar extension for a variety of hand positions, though I should add at this juncture that Greenworks also offers a bike-style handlebar version of this model, so perhaps consider that if you think a wider handlebar is better suited to your needs.I also noticed that this strimmer didn’t feel quite as powerful as some of the others that I tested. It came with a 2.0Ah battery, which gave me about 20 minutes of strimming time. This may be all you need if you have a small garden, but I would recommend purchasing a larger battery for medium or large spaces. This same battery can of course be used with other Ryobi One+ tools. Handle types. There are two types of strimmer handles. The most common is a round, circular handle on the shaft of the strimmer, called a loop handle. It makes the strimmer easy and comfortable to control, and on the best models, it can be slid up and down the shaft, so you can adjust it to your height. Alternatively, there are ‘steer’ handles - two handles rather than a loop. These offer more control and let you use a comfortable scything motion when you cut, but they take up room, and can be a little more expensive. They’re also far more common on brushcutters and petrol strimmers than electric or cordless strimmers, so you might not find steer handles on many domestic models.

In terms of cutting power, blades and cutting line are pretty evenly matched. Some gardeners have grown tired of messing with cutting line and prefer the bladed models, but others don’t enjoy having to replace the blades. How to Use a Cordless StrimmerThe first thing you notice with the Gtech GT50 strimmer is how light it is. At 1.85kgs, this model is easy to hold and use, plus it could strim the neighbourhood and still have enough energy left to strim it again. Actually, that may be a bit far fetched since the battery only lasts about 30 minutes. Nevertheless, from experience, 30 minutes is all it takes to trim the edges of a moderately large lawn. If you don’t wear the battery all the way down, you’re unlikely to need to recharge it before using it again; the lithium-ion batteries used in cordless tools hold their charge relatively well. Of course, charging before use will make sure that you get the most run-time possible from your cordless machine. Assembling Bosch garden tools is usually a simple task, but this cordless trimmer required quite a bit of strength to put together. As long as that’s not an issue for you, assembly should only take about 15 minutes.