Bosch Professional 18V System GBL 18V-120 cordless blower (up to 270 km/h air flow rate, excluding rechargeable batteries and charger, in cardboard box)

Product Information

As a result, clearing the 3kg (one big garden bag full) of wet leaves from our 40m2 test patch of lawn took quite some time, particularly once the leaves started to pile up. In fact it got to the point of being quite frustrating, having to continually go over the same patch. With a more realistic, thinner sprinkling of leaves it would cope better, but for any remotely heavy duty work it does struggle. All this adds up to make this a convenient tool that’s great for the occasional garden or yard cleaning job. In fact its low power output makes it suitable for certain indoor applications, like dusting book shelves or curtains, as well as blasting away the cobwebs from your shed or garage. The reason it can claim such high output speeds is that the nozzle is very narrow. It tapers to a point only around 5cm wide by 2cm tall, which compares to around 15cm by 5cm for more powerful units like the Stihl BGA85. This in turn makes it more accurate, which can be useful, but widespread blowing power is limited. The Bosch ALB 18LI is a joy to use simply because it is so lightweight and its low power output doesn’t push your hand around too much. The simple on/off trigger also makes it easy to manoeuvre the blower round the garden without blowing everything else around you. However, as something of a general purpose blower tool it is more useful. For blasting away dust and leaves from your patio, clearing out the cobwebs from your shed, doing the odd bit of dusting and of course clearing smaller patches of leaves from your lawn it is more than up to the task. What’s more, its compact, lightweight form makes it really easy to handle and its battery operation means you don’t have to faff about with cables or petrol to get the thing going.

One key advantage of the ALB 18 LI’s low power output is a lower noise level. We measured it at just 70dB, which compares to nearer 85dB for high-power models. The 10-minute battery life is a bit of a limitation, especially with the long charge time, but the battery doesn’t leak charge over time. So as long as you’re sure to charge it after each time you use it, it should be ready to go straight off the bat. Disappointingly for such a lightweight unit there’s no mounting point for hanging it on a wall so you’ll have to attach a length of string or mount a hook to hang it up. The main reason for its diminutive dimensions is that this is a fairly low-power unit. While its output speed of 58m/s is actually quite high, the volume of air it outputs is low. Bosch doesn’t provide figures for this number but as we’ll see in our tests later, it is far below that of more powerful units.