Skotek Cordless Strimmer 20V, Cordless Grass Trimmer

I found the trimmer line was more durable when trimming next to stone lawn edging than the plastic blades. I discarded my bladed trimmer as I was forever changing blades, not so with the corded. Only down side was the length of time to recharge the battery, but l can live with that.

This is a lightweight strimmer suitable for lawn edging etc. It is not the sort of machine that you can tackle things such as nettles, that sort of task is better carried out with a heavier duty brush cutter. For just keeping the lawn corners tidy and edging it is ideal. No need to messing about with extension cables, just charge the battery, takes about 3-4 hours for a full charge, and you have about half an hours cord free trimming. OK, the construction is mostly plastic, then what isn’t nowadays, the parts that tighten, unclip or can be moved seem robust enough to do the job. The handy wheels can be rotated to different positions by pushing in the small latch button on the main shaft, also the handle can be retracted and extended which is handy for storage and to achieve a comfortable working length. It only has a single strimmer cord but this does the job on grass without any problems, on the plus side it makes replacing the cord easier than trying to manage threading two at once. The video is me just taking the straggly bits off the edge of the lawn, with the wheels to support the unit I managed it one handed and filmed as well. It did a good job but that might not be obvious from my rubbish filming. There is a flip down wire guard, it cuts pretty much to the extent of this so you can use it to get up to an edge, say a fence without damaging the fence or the strimmer cord. The head angle can be adjusted via a push button and combining this with repositioning the wheels you can get it to strim lawn edges pretty accurately, the wheels make it easier to keep it steady and in a straight line. Replacing the line seems straightforward there are two latches to push in and then twist the spool to remove it, the reel can then be pushed out to wind new cord on. You can buy spare reel assemblies in case they get damaged on Amazon as well as spare batteries which is good news. A good cordless solution for lawncare.

Before getting into the detail of the strimmer note that the first thing I check when I look at a battery operated tool is the availability of batteries. Firstly it is good to know if the tool will be scrap if the battery fails and secondly I like to have a spare charged battery for when the power runs out in the middle of a job. The batteries for this tool are specific to the make but I note that they are available on Amazon. My tool was supplied for review with one battery but I also note that it is available as a kit with a second battery. If I was buying that is what I would go for.

Now down to the tool itself. In a shed containing tools from the well known professional power tool suppliers plus a few from suppliers I had never heard of this stands up quite well. The build quality seems good for the price, all the parts fit together OK and the tool works as intended. Unlike many power tool systems there is no charging base, just a mains plug type charger with a cable to plug in to the battery. Does its job and probably a lot cheaper to produce. The battery was supplied partly charged and red and green LEDs on the battery show charged or charging and in use there is a line of three LEDs which illuminate to show current charge when a small button is pressed. Even some of my DeWalt batteries don’t have that.

As this review is being written in January only test use is possible and my plan is to keep this strimmer for use on the front lawn so I avoid having to get the big professional trimmer that I use for the rear garden jungle. This does mean that I can compare this tool with a pro one and it comes out OK. The lighter weight makes it easier and less tiring to use, the two handles make it easy to control and the length of the central tube has some limited adjustment. At full length it is still a little short for my 6′ 2″ but no issues on a small lawn. It cuts the grass OK but not surprisingly it struggles a little on heavy growth in comparison to my big strimmer. For lawn edges I do like the wheels that can be positioned at the rear to keep the trimmer a fixed height from the ground and a cutting head that can rotate teamwork vertically. This makes it a lot easier to cut evenly around the edges of the drive. As it uses 1 mm line (as do most domestic strimmers) the line can break a little easily if it is worked hard but for normal lawn edging type jobs it works well.

Line feed is the usual bang it on the ground to get more line that all strimmers seem to use but my experience is that I prefer to pick it up and pull out more rather than keep banging the ground and that works OK as well. My experience with banging the ground is that it wastes line , damages the housing or lawn and I still need to keep lifting the strimmer to check line length anyway. New line heads are available on Amazon but it is also possible to refill with loose line. The latter is my preference although the squeeze and press needed to remove the head is a little fiddly.

In conclusion I always like to review an item noting the offer price and from the limited tests I can do in winter this seems to be a decent tool that does the job intended at a reasonable price. If I had any reservations it would be long term availability of spares such as batteries but, again, for the price that is not a major issue.