Line trimmers

Power, performance and convenience are our main considerations when testing a line trimmer.

Lifetime score

Our overall score combines test performance (how well the product works) with predicted reliability (how likely models from the brand are to remain free of faults) and brand satisfaction (how likely owners of the brand are to be satisfied).

Test performance

It’s no good if a product lasts for many years if it doesn’t work well in the first place. A disappointing product will soon become unloved and unwanted. For this reason, our independent lab testing forms an important part of our overall lifetime score.

Our line trimmers test is based on:

• Cutting and trimming, including:
  - cutting long, thick, weedy grass
  - horizontal trimming (trimmer head parallel to the ground) of short to medium length grass along fences, walls and areas of lawn
  - vertical trimming (trimmer head at a right angle to the ground) along path and garden edges, to assess how well they create tidy borders.
• Ease of use, considering handle comfort and ergonomics, weight, balance, shaft length and adjustability, cutting visibility, and any excessive vibration. We also assess the ease of starting, using the controls, feeding the line out, and re-spooling the line.

Predicted reliability

It’s reasonable to expect a new line trimmer to remain fault-free for a good amount of time. Our predicted reliability won't tell you whether yours will stop working tomorrow, but it does show which brands make models that are less likely to fail early.

Brand satisfaction

Satisfaction is important – no product should be a source of buyer regret. Line trimmers with satisfied owners are more likely to be taken care of and therefore last longer.

Survey data

In our reliability and satisfaction surveys, consumers tell us about faults that have left a product they own unusable or mean they’ve had to change how they use it. We also ask them how satisfied they are with the product. We use their data to produce our predicted reliability and brand satisfaction scores.

We use a statistical test to rate the relative performance of each brand. Compared to data we have for all products of the same type in the survey, we rate each brand with highest, high, average, low or lowest for predicted reliability and brand satisfaction, respectively.

You can compare the ratings of different brands for the same product type (for example, the predicted reliability ratings for Stihl and Masport line trimmers), but you can’t compare the results for different product types (for example, satisfaction of EGO line trimmers and Makita lawnmowers).

We analyse brands that get at least 30 responses in our survey. That means there are some brands we can’t analyse because we don’t have enough data. For those brands, we assume they have average reliability and satisfaction.

Our data is based on 1,324 responses from owners of line trimmers in our 2023 survey.