Rating: - Good light duty trimmer
I purchased this trimmer in May 2008 and I am very happy with it. I have used it about 5 times. The majority of my weed trimming is done by a yard service, but I needed a trimmer for touch up and weed trimmer in areas outside the lawn. It is very nice to put in a battery and go. Battery life is good. I can get about 20 minutes of hard use (briars, thick weeds) and about 40 minutes of light use (grass) out of a fresh battery. The unit comes with two batteries. I have changed the "string" once and it was easy. The trimmer is light and quiet. May experience with the cordless trimmer resulted in me purchasing the B&D cordless pole hedge trimmer. They use the same battery, which is very helpful. All and all very good product, if you understand your getting a light duty trimmer.
Rating: - Great!
We have a one acre lot and borrowed our neighbors Black and Decker loved the ease of the start!
So we bought our owm and we love it. It takes us both batteries to do the whole lot but hey there included.
Rating: - Plenty good for a small or medium yard
I read a whole bunch of reviews before I bought this-not only this product but a lot of other cordless and corded electric trimmers. In retrospect, I would say that many of the reviewers of this type of product are people who want to do work that is heavier-duty than what I wanted. All I wanted was something to trim around a lawn and keep things tidy, not cut down really tall grass or big weeds. For a well-kept yard, medium or small in size (all I do it trim along a 100 foot driveway and around a few shrubs and trees), this product is just fine. I don't even exhaust one of the two batteries doing my yard. If, on the other hand, you are going after grass that is a foot tall, or if you are trying to cut down woody stemmed weeds, you will not be happy with this trimmer. I would definitely say this machine was worth the money and does what B&D says it will do.
Rating: - good trimmer, but battery life is terrible
I have a small yard and can barely finish trimming it with two batteries. These are old fashioned nicd batteries that develop a memory over time so if you recharge them when they aren't fully charged they never really recharge properly again. This is really bad considering there are much better battery technologies available that don't have this problem. Why they continue to sell this product with such terrible batteries is beyond me. Every thing else about this trimmer is fine, but it's all kinda besides the point without a proper power source.
Rating: - Better than I expected...
I was expecting a really wimpy machine that wouldn't be able to do much of a job. However, it works very well for what I need -- weekly trimming around shrubs, raised beds, etc. I already have a gas powered string trimmer, which I hate because it is so heavy and loud. The weekly chore of triming after mowing (on a big property) doesn't require a gas powered trimmer if you don't allow the weeds to get big, and this works very well. I'm saving the gas powered trimmer for the big jobs.
- Good light duty trimmer
- Great!
- good trimmer, but battery life is terrible