If you want a sick string trimmer at an even sicker price for home use, I’m pretty confident that the Ryobi 40-volt attachment-capable string trimmer will deliver for you. It delivered for us.
I’m a professional home improvement contractor, elder statesman in the tool review world, and I’ve done my share of commercial lawn care. So my mojo is more about getting work done than getting clicks on this website. While I’m not currently a grass cutting professional, I have been in the past. I know which lawn tools work, and why.
What do I like about the Ryobi string trimmer?
I like this unit and I like it in direct proportion to its price.
Is it a full-bore pro-grade tool like its sister brand Milwaukee? (They are brands under the same parent company, TTI that also includes Ridgid.) No, it’s not.
However, Milwaukee’s string trimmer tool is barely positioned to be a pro tool, and astonishingly so. Unless you can charge batteries on your lawn trailer and lawns grow where it doesn’t rain much, neither Milwaukee nor Ryobi string trimmers are go-to pro tools. It comes down to the fact that they are battery-powered, limiting their use and efficiency managing large or multiple lawns.
Tool Dweeb Note: Most of the pro brands‘ expansion into lawn care tools is more about battery platform and selling more tools than actual problem-solving in the field. Many pro dudes who run Milwaukee on their building/remodeling jobsites buy the cordless stuff for home use, so they can use their work batteries. Smart.
But back to Ryobi.
It’s built to cut.
First, the Ryobi 40-volt string trimmer is a straight-shaft tool. In my more than two decades of reviewing and using tools in real life, unless you are 150 years old, do not buy one of those curved things. They’re worthless.
Spin.
It goes in the correct direction. To put a finer point on it, some uber DIY trimmers spin clockwise. That is a design disaster from a right-handed user’s approach because you’re always tangled up in what the trimmer is spitting out. The Ryobi–THANK YOU–spins counter-clockwise. That spits the detritus out behind you, not in front of you. Excellent.
Balance.
Tool balance is a conversation we could have for an hour. And balancing something whirring at one end that’s 5 feet long is an engineering achievement. Ryobi nailed it.
And, when you have to get in behind the AC condenser unit or through that little patch between here and there, the tool is nimble. Nice!
It also tucks in under the arm edging.
Quiet.
The big difference between the Ryobi cordless string trimmer and a gas/oil string trimmers is the deliriously wonderful quiet–you could trim at midnight if you want.
The Ryobi trimmer also has a soft start. You can goose the trigger, which is pulsing the trigger on/off/on/off. But unlike a gas model, there is a beat between “pull” and “spin.” The Ryobi’s sister tool, the Milwaukee, is an instant-on gas-like tool, and my mojo.
Power + Battery Life.
Power. Plenty.
Battery life on the 40-amp–included in the price–is around 40 minutes in grass. I let the lawn get away from me, and it gave me an opportunity to see how long the Ryobi trimmer could go.
While my yard is on the small side, I churned through tall spring grass and edging for 40 minutes. Some of it was a foot high. The thing works.
Shroud.
The smaller a shroud around a string trimmer the better, in my view. Some land-scrapers remove them and I have tried that, but it hasn’t been my juju. I like what Ryobi designed. Snug, it keeps stuff from flying at me and I can get it where it needs to be gotten.
String Feed.
I’m glad it took me a year to gather all of the intel on this tool. I was going to complain that I had to tap the self-feed to advance the line just so to advance it. But, then I discovered by accident that if I just tip it a bit and strike the advance on its edge rather than flat, out comes the line. Easy-peasy.
Rating for the Ryobi 40v String Trimmer?
For home use: Full Chooch.
