Greenworks PRO 16" 80V Cordless String Trimmer

This is a fantastic trimmer and I'm beyond happy with it. Granted Troy-Bilt may have lowered my expectations so much anything would have been better, but this trimmer has far exceeded my expectations... Little background - I had a 4-Cycle Troy-Bilt trimmer for MANY years while living on 8+ acres. It was awesome. No mixing fuel, powerful, smooth speed changes, and attachments. I have the trimmer, edger, blower, leaf vacuum, and tiller. With this much land to handle - it got a workout. Eventually the fuel lines cracked/rotted and had to be replaced. Easy to do and it still worked great. Eventually I moved to a neighborhood on a MUCH smaller lot, but took the old faithful with me. Sadly it finally gave up the ghost a couple years later, but certainly owed me nothing (I think I had it for close to 15 years). So I drove right out to Lowes to pickup another. I knew TB had been purchased by MTD I think and there was a good chance the new stuff wasn't great. But I had much less land to care for and really liked the 4 cycle convenience. Got the new trimmer home and HATED it. It ran terrible, there was NO smooth speed up and it would bog down constantly if it wasn't running at full speed and full speed didn't really FEEL like full speed. It could barely drive the leaf blower. It was so bad I thought something was wrong with it because it ran NOTHING like my old one. I took it back to Lowes and exchanged it - the replacement wasn't better. I should have taken that one back but toughed it out. I learned to adjust with how badly the engine ran and when trimming near our fence - ran it at full speed, covering my legs in lots of green bits. But all my attachments worked and once it warmed up it kinda ran OK. It never started easy. < 2 years after purchase, the pull rope gears broke. SO done. Being 2018 I was hoping there was a decent battery powered alternative. After a bunch of research I found this 80V line of tools and decided to give it a try. I only needed the trimmer currently, but the idea of an electric mower appealed to me as well (though the cheap MTD mower I bought when we moved runs like a dream and has never given us trouble - go figure, thanks Briggs & Stratton). But I wanted a trimmer that would work with my attachments which all were in great shape. Could a battery powered unit work with my edger? I had just replaced the blade in my edger, so when the Greenworks trimmer arrived, that was the first task. A new square edged blade is going to be even harder to drive until it wears down to a rounded edge. This thing drove it like a boss! My trimmer had been dead probably 3 weeks so my 'edges' were pretty much gone. So this was an even harder chore than normal and this trimmer mowed through it. Then I put on the included trimmer attachment and trimmed: it made fast work of the, now, heavy grass on the fence edges, all at LOW speed. This trimmer was so solid at low speed, I was able to trim my entire yard and my legs were pretty much clean - not covered in tons of shredded vegetation. Even better - I bump fed trim line MUCH less than I did with the gas trimmer (which I always had to run at higher speed to maintain cutting) With a lot of cement edging - this is huge for me. The trimmer is well balanced, not too heavy, and the 2Ah battery lasted through the entire job (and given how hard I had to edge - wouldn't have surprised me if it hadn't) So a couple things to note: 1) This trimmer does take a couple seconds to ramp up to full speed. I suspect this is a design choice, not a flaw. Electric motors can produce a LOT of torque and if the motor hit full RPM when you jammed the trigger - it would possibly over stress internal components or attachments designed for the more laggy ramp up of gasoline trimmers. It's not a huge deal because... this trimmer holds low speed and instantly reacts to changes in trigger position so once it's going, it stays going and you can easily ramp up/down. You quickly get used to it (and it's so easy to maintain cutting speed - you rarely have to ramp up anyway) 2) The trimmer also will 'stop' if you overload it to protect itself and the attachments. When I was edging in well overgrown edges with a new blade and pushed too deep (pretty much ALL the way into the ground), it would stop. Pull it up and restart - worked fine. I quickly adjusted the angle and pressure to edge a little slower without overloading it. This again is likely meant to protect the motor, gears, and battery from a stalled motor (which causes huge current spikes in a motor). It was a MINOR adjustment - this thing is that powerful. When I edged again normally a week later - didn't even have to worry about it because the edger flew through it. 3) Attachments - I can't speak to other brands, but all my Troy-Bilt attachments fit. It ran the leaf blower at a MUCH higher (and normal) RPM than the gas trimmer did - the gas trimmer always seemed to struggle with the blower. They fit perfectly and there was a ton of grease inside the shaft to lube things up during initial use. You may have to wipe a bit back into the shaft after a couple uses. So I'm thrilled with this! Given how batteries are about half the cost of these electric yard tools, I already have a 2Ah battery - so looking forward to getting a mower with a 4Ah battery and being done with yardwork gas for good! Highly recommended!