EGO Garden Power Products Review – Go Go cordless and never, ever look back

There is no doubting it now, I’m never mowing my lawns with a petrol mower again. Same goes for the edges and any use of a blower – baby, it’s all electric now!

Having tested the Ryobi range of electric garden gear some time back and for an extended period, I think it’s safe to say I was already a convert. But a few things held me back. Namely the lightweight nature of the mower, and the lack of oomph in the trimmer.

Then I got some products from EGO to test. Now unfortunately, these arrived pretty close to the start of winter so aside from one quick go at the mower, all I knew until this weekend just gone was that the EGO Power Blower was ridiculously powerful.

So, with spring edging closer and the sun out, I took to the backyard!

Each of the items I have came with a battery, so I have 2 x 2.5Ah and 1 x 7.5Ah batteries. All the EGO products use the same 56Volt Lithium system, and the batteries work on all products – the only difference being the amount of use time you get from each.

Fully charged, I set off!

Around the edges

Line trimming was my first chore, and this was the nervous one for me – petrol power is hard to beat when smashing through the long grass around the edges. One blip of the throttle and I was sold. This sounded good, and it worked.

I breezed through the edges, and trimming the pathways too.

Problem was, the orange cord that came with the trimmer wasn’t all that long, so I grabbed some more cord from my old trimmer kit and set about feeding it on.

Isn’t this just the worst garden job on the planet? Taking off the head, carefully winding on some cord being sure not to be too tight, then precariously sliding the head back on without letting the line all unravel.

Oh – what’s this? Powerload? INSANE. take a few meters of cord, feed it through the head – pushing it basically half way through, then lining up the ends and simply push and hold the pcowerload button.

It’s seriously that easy.

That’s a $499 line trimmer, but with their warranty, the carbon fibre shaft and that bloody awesome cord feeding system – I’m sold.

It’s like day of the triffids out there

Onto the lawns. And yep, I’ve let them go a bit over winter. Not terrible, but in the coolest and sunniest area they’re a bit out of control.

With the 7.5Ah battery on board, I fire up the POWER + 52CM SELF PROPELLED LAWN MOWER.

I like a low cut, but on the 2nd lowest setting there wasn’t much cutting to be done in the general areas of the lawn, so I went as low as it could go. Problem is that made it bloody hard to push when things got thick under foot.

No problem, near my right hand is a lever that activates the self-propulsion. This thing pushes itself.

On the left side there’s a speed control too. For the most part this is what got me through the thick of my lawns.

My problem is that I still don’t really love for the self-propelled lawn mower. My lawns aren’t a square shape, they are odd, so there is some real mastery to the pattern I mow and that requires a lot of strange turns, some quick back and forth and so on.

Self-Propelled mowers just don’t like this kinda work, or perhaps more correctly aren’t as nimble when in user pushing mode.

I’ll get used to it, But if buying, I’d save my money and get the Push mower without the burden of the heavier left rear wheel.

The 52cm width makes for quick work of the lawns, and honestly, these mowers just chew through anything. I moved all the kids toys, but all the twigs, sticks and leaves I left out there – mulch away baby!

Bloody impressive unit – and it had wanna be for $1,099.

BLOW ME DOWN

Next up, the tidy up. Time for the leaf blower.

Aside from the constant question of “where am I actually blowing all this stuff to” I love the simplicity of cleaning up the yard work with a good leaf blower.

The $99 job from Bunnings has been ok, but I’ve now realised there’s blowers, and then there are BLOWERS.

This one from EGO is $419. The POWER + 900M³/H BLOWER will knock small children over.

In standard mode it’s pumping well, but I couldn’t resist almost always holding down the turbo button which unleashed the full 900 whatever’s of power. It just made the job so great.

Again, I can’t imagine using a petrol blower again – the heat of them on your side as you use them, the weight – there’s little advantage other than a quick top up of fuel.

Going electric

Which is really the only big negative to this whole “going electric” excitement.

Running out of petrol is a 5 min refill. But let’s be honest, you fill before you mow and you’ve never run out. At my place, I do the back yard, then need to recharge the battery.

With the EGO 56V rapid charger I can get the 7.5Ah battery topped up in one hour – sounds annoying at first, but what I’ve started doing is organising my yard work around it. Do some edges, then sit that battery to charge. Then do the lawns, when that needs a charge, go back to the edges.

The blower doesn’t need as much run-time, so just use what’s left of both batteries to finish the job off at the end.

Bottom line, even though all the batteries are interchangeable, you’re going to want a 2.5Ah battery and a 7.5Ah battery to get through the job, along with the rapid charger.

These EGO products are fantastic. Well built, solid, powerful, and the look bloody good too.

You’ll need to find your local stockist, which you can do on their website – but well worth a look!