The Best Cordless String Trimmers

The line feed is the reason to buy this one. EGO's Line IQ head senses when the line wears down and pays out more on its own, so your cut stays a full 16 inches instead of quietly shrinking to twelve. You're not stopping to tap the head on the driveway every minute. When the spool finally runs dry, PowerLoad winds a new length for you at the push of a button — This Old House rated that system the fastest re-spooling mechanism in a twelve-trimmer comparison, at under ten seconds.

Picture the strip between your fence and the neighbor's hedge, the one you always save for last. A wider head eats that in fewer passes. Family Handyman's lab work found 16-inch trimmers cover a given area up to 25 percent faster than 13-inch models, and fewer passes means less time holding a motor out at arm's length. On a quarter acre that's the difference between a chore and a quick lap.

It's light where it counts. The listed weight is 7.5 pounds, and the carbon fiber shaft telescopes so you can set the length to your own height rather than stooping through the whole job. If your wrists start complaining twenty minutes into yard work, that combination matters more than any number on the box. The digital speed selector helps too — dial it down for soft grass and you're not fighting the tool.

EGO rates the included 4.0Ah battery for up to 60 minutes and the charger refills it in 55. Treat that hour as a ceiling, not a promise, because full-trigger work in heavy growth pulls it down fast. Even so, most small and medium lots come in well under it, and the pack is ready again before you've finished mowing. That's the practical case for the 56-volt platform.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

This is one of the most expensive trimmers here, and the clever head is part of why. Line IQ has more moving parts than a plain bump head, and when it acts up you can't just fall back on a tap-and-go routine the way you can with a simpler spool.

EGO packs only fit EGO tools. If your garage already holds DeWalt or Ryobi batteries, you're starting a second charger collection, and that cost lands on top of the trimmer itself.

On paper this lands close to the EGO: 16-inch swath, brushless motor, a 4.0Ah battery and charger in the box. The difference is the head. Load N' Go threads a fresh length of line without dismantling the spool, which is genuinely quick, but it doesn't sense wear the way Line IQ does. Expect a little more fiddling mid-job on tall, wet grass.

The shoulder strap is the underrated part. A 16-inch head hanging off one arm gets heavy by the third pass down a long driveway. Clipping into the included strap moves that weight onto your torso, and you'll feel it most on slopes and awkward stretches where you're already bracing. If you've got a half acre or a lot of fence line, take the strap seriously.

The four-year limited warranty covers the battery as well as the tool, which is unusual — packs are typically the first thing to fade. Greenworks also lists compatibility with 75-plus tools on the same 60V platform, so a blower or a chainsaw down the road runs on hardware you already own instead of another charger on the shelf.

The shaft accepts Greenworks attachments too, so one motor can become an edger or a pole saw later. That's worth a lot if you're building a yard kit from nothing. It's the runner-up rather than the top pick mainly because EGO handles line for you, and mid-job line trouble is the annoyance most people want gone.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The head doesn't self-feed, so you'll still stop occasionally to sort out line — exactly the interruption our top pick is designed to remove.

This is a bigger machine than the EGO, with a 68.5-inch shaft, and the listing weight reflects the whole boxed kit rather than what you'll carry. Shorter users should plan on using the strap rather than muscling it.

Greenworks backs it with a four-year limited warranty that covers both the tool and the battery.

If your yard is a patch of grass, a walkway, and a strip along the fence, most of what the bigger trimmers offer is weight you don't need. This one is 13 inches of cut on a telescoping pole, and it's the sort of tool you grab for five minutes of touch-up without thinking about it. That low barrier is the whole point.

The edger conversion is what makes it worth owning. Twist the head and the line stands vertical, so you can cut a clean edge along the sidewalk on the same trip. Cheaper trimmers either skip this or turn it into a two-handed wrestling match. Good Housekeeping's reviewers note that pivoting heads flip to edging mode in under five seconds without tools, and that means you'll actually do it.

Automatic feed means no bumping — the spool pays out line as it wears. The PowerCommand dial lets you pick between more torque for thick weeds and a gentler speed that stretches the charge, which is a real choice on a small battery. The charger refills the pack in two hours or less, fine for a tool used in short bursts.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Budget trimmers hit a wall in heavy growth, and this one does too. Wirecutter's research found that trimmers in this class struggle with vegetation much thicker than a quarter inch, while premium models handle stems closer to three-eighths. If your lawn includes a ditch full of brambles, look higher up this list.

The 13-inch swath also means more passes over the same ground, so the time you save reaching for a light tool comes back on a big lot.

Torque separates a trimmer that cuts weeds from one that wraps them around the head and stalls. Milwaukee rates this motor above a 31cc gas powerhead, and in Tool Box Buzz's brushless comparison the M18 FUEL produced the highest cutting torque in the group — ahead of several 40-volt machines, on 18 volts.

That shows up in the ugly work: the bank behind the shed, the fence line you keep skipping, stems thick enough that a lighter trimmer makes you take half bites. Here you hold the trigger and walk. Landscapers running one of these all day are the reason it exists, and that design bias is obvious the first time you hit something woody.

QUIK-LOK is the real argument for this platform. The powerhead accepts 13 Milwaukee attachments, so the same motor and battery become an edger, a pole saw, or a hedge trimmer. If you already own M18 packs from drills and impact drivers, you're adding heads instead of starting over, and one charger keeps the whole kit moving through a Saturday.

Milwaukee doesn't publish a cutting swath on this listing, and trimmers like it usually sell as bare tools. So plan on sourcing a battery and charger if you're not already in the M18 family. That's the trade with pro-grade gear — you're buying into a system, not a kit in a box.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

For a quarter acre of turf and a few flower beds, this is more machine than you need. It's heavier in the hand than our top pick, and torque you rarely call on costs you comfort on every single pass.

The listing is also thin on the details shoppers compare first: no stated swath, no runtime figure, no spelled-out battery or charger. If you're starting from zero on M18, the real cost of getting going is higher than the trimmer alone suggests.