You know those brand new Dewalt 40V Max lawn and garden tools that just hit the market? The brushless-powered blower and string trimmer kits are now part of a new Amazon promo where you get a $200 bundle discount if you buy them with an additional battery pack.
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Buy either the 6Ah blower kit or the 6Ah trimmer kit, and either a 4Ah or 6Ah battery pack, and the $200 discount is applied to your order at checkout. You must buy an eligible kit and battery pack at the same time to get the discount.
An additional 4Ah battery pack is priced at $199, and the 6Ah battery pack is $249. So this means you either get a free 4Ah battery with your order, or a heavily discounted 6Ah battery pack.
Promo ends 5/14/2015.
Buy Now(via Amazon)
Jimmie
Given the trimmer’s $369 price and $200+ battery, I assume Dewalt is targeting the commercial/pro-sumer crowd. So I’ve been waiting for the reviews to come in to see how well it performed in that sort of environment.
In that vein, the Amazon reviews were a little disappointing:
“I did wear goggles and heavy shoes.”
“it spins really fast on high speed”
“The line or cord is .80 gauge which is pretty thick”
Now, these were Amazon Vine reviews so I don’t fault the reviewers (Amazon simply sent free trimmers to some of their top reviewers for testing). But I’m not convinced that those reviewers match up well with Dewalt’s target audience in this case. Again, would typical Joe Homeowner spend this much on a trimmer?
I was hoping at least one reviewer had used it in a more rigorous setting and could answer these sorts of questions:
If someone were to use this in a typical lawn care business environment, how many batteries would it take to get through a day? Given, the 0.080 line size, I imagine it breaks pretty easily so how hard is it to re-spool new line? The Dewalt’s maximum RPM is about 1500 rpm lower than the max shaft RPM of my gas-powered Stihl. What impact does that have in real world use?
john
Jimmie,
I know exactly what you mean about the credibility of some reviewers and how far the actual review is from what would be a useful resource.
Knowledgeable reviews by legitimate pro users are the exception rather than the rule.
On here the reviews, feedback and experience is excellent but Amazon reviews etc its often people with no real input.
Youtube especially is full of tool reviewers doing little more that opening a box and listing what is in it. I watched one yesterday with a bloke dismissing a Milwaukee multitool as useless and rubbish as he attempted to cut a nail off with a scraper blade!
But It's Me!
Only two verified purchase reviews, with only a line or two at most. The rest appear to be Vine reviews, which I also do not count very helpful. I find the Vine reviews to be questionable, as most Vine reviews I read are almost always very positive of the item. Just reeks of bias.
Garrick
Just for the fun of it, I like to break down the individual components’ value when purchased in a kit.
The string trimmer kit with two 4 amp batteries would be $300.
So, to break it down:
Trimmer $140
Charger $30
Battery $65
Battery $65
Total $300
This values the 4 amp batteries at $65 each. About 1/3 the list price.
Just a guess of course.
It would be great to see the manufacturer’s cost breakdown.
Stuart
That’s not always a good way to consider things, as kits are very heavily discounted.
hung
lowe have 4 amp batteries kit same price, you can use 10 percent 0ff save some money.
Jerry
I think that this will be the future of yard and garden tools given the direction of environmental laws and regulations, but in a right here, right now scenario, at least for me, I could buy a gas powered trimmer that would likely outperform it, along with 10+ years worth of gas.
Nathan
If you live in california – or if you live in a town or city with severe noise ordinance restrictions – cordless electric is going to be about the only thing you can buy.
I’m a little surprised that Echo or Husqvarna hasn’t tried their hand a battery electric trimmers, etc. I don’t know of any other battery powered devices that are pro-sumer oriented. a proper 4 cycle job seems to cost 249ish for a straight shaft to 369 for cordless battery power doesn’t seem that far out of wack.
one thing I wished it did – was have some split boom system with other attachments (like the newer echo line – or the troybuilt). or at least let the trimmer head rotate 90 degrees.
either way when my 4-cycle dies I’m going to look into something like this.
Robb
Husqvarna actually has a 36 V string trimmer, chainsaw and hedge trimmer. Echo as a 58 V string trimmer, blower, hedge trimmer, chainsaw and lawn mower.
Nathan
did not know that. they don’t sell them around my area it seems.
Farid
Try Home Depot, or better yet, go online and find who the local Echo dealer is.
Jerry
Stihl also has a growing lineup of cordless yard tools.
Brent
Echo has recently come out with a 58 volt line of outdoor tools, chain saw, push mower, hedge trimmer, blower, & string trimmer available through Home Depot. Also they have another line available through Echo dealers, 36 volt I think.
Jim Felt
True noise abatement rules have not yet hit Portlandia but sometimes just neighbors alone can bring quiet about. I’m hoping.
Regardless, I’m wondering about the recycling potential of these ever larger Li-ion battery packs? As they may well be our shared future.
Sean
Someone above mentioned this, but it wasn’t 100% clear: Lowes is offering a similar “free battery” promotion. I didn’t catch the details but it is probably the same as this Amazon deal. Yesterday, I saw this posted in front of the Dewalt 40V display.
This Dewalt stuff seems pretty good, and now it’s a toss-up (for me) between Ego, Echo, and MAYBE Dewalt, although Dewalt is starting with *insanely* high list prices on their batteries. (I’m not looking at Husqvarna, Stihl, or Makita’s 36V lines, but it should be noted that their are *many* options at this point)
I saw the Echo 58V stuff at Home Depot last week, and each piece of equipment actually had a charged battery in it, so I was able to play with them. The trimmer is definitely the first piece I would buy. It has the motor mounted at the top near the battery and includes an attachment-capable SPLIT SHAFT. That only could be what convinces me to switch from Ego to Echo. The trimmer also feels heavy duty and very similar to their gas units. The trimmer attachment head is the exact same as the gas units because they just powered the shaft and attached it to a new power head. Dewalt and Ego both place the motor at the bottom next to the bump head. This means that the motor is probably running direct drive. Pretty simple setup for these companies to be charging $200-300 bucks eh?
Echo and Ego also have chainsaws while Dewalt does NOT (yet). The Echo and Ego both look good, but the Echo comes with a 4a/h battery for the same price $299 (and I think it’s bar might be 2″ longer).
Ego might have the advantage on the blower, but I’m not sure about this (It’s the one unit I own and I do like it.) The Echo has a variable speed trigger (Ego is variable, but button/switch controlled). The look and feel leads me to believe it is higher quality, but looks can be deceiving. The Ego just has this space-age look to it with cheap, grey plastic, and tacky green buttons, but it is definitely powerful.
I’ve read on the Ego forums that the Echo cordless stuff is a partnership with Ryobi and Echo is recycling a lot of Ryobi 40V parts and designs. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I know this: when people pick-up the Echo they will be led to believe it is higher quality than Ego.
Also, to the person above that said Echo has a 36V line, I thought I would mention that from what I can tell they have a SINGLE 36V product: a trimmer. It seems they’ve taken it down from their website, but at one point I saw a page that said “CHOOSE YOUR PRODUCT FAMILY: 36v OR 58v” and when you clicked the 36V it would show a picture of single trimmer. I guess they had to give a nod to the poor bastards who jumped in early since Echo has probably all but dropped that line. (This is also what scares me about jumping in early on these cordless outdoor products. They are COSTLY to say the least, and your batteries and product may be dropped in two years.)
Shawn
I bought a Dewalt 40volt trimmer at the beginning of the summer because i was tired of having to hunt for ethanol free to use with my gas trimmer. We have over 2 acres with a 4000 sq ft house and fenced in back yard. I can trim it all and around the 10 trees we have with battery to spare. Most gets done on the low setting but the high takes care of the thick stuff with no problems. One of the few electrics i found with dual string head.
Tom
I bought the Echo 58v trimmer. The tool has a grease fitting on the head. It is plenty violent on the slow setting. Its like part throttle on my Stihl FS85x which has been supplanted by other, greener products now. I hear the net whisperers saying it was killed because of dirty carbon credits being limited.
I have a wood fenced front yard that is an acre roughly. 40-50 trees, shrubs, planters obstacles and a small kitchen garden with a border fence. The Echo had one light still showing on the battery when I was done.
The Echo 58v will do everything I need it to do. I think my path will involve the other equipment, but I wont buy the 2ah batteries, just the 4ah. I am glad they sell the hear without the battery as a result. I have found the 4ah battery for 100.00 here and there on the net.