Ryobi 40V Brushless Trimmer and Blower Review

This is episode number 149 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. So glad you could be with us. How's it going, Kev?

Well, I'm fine, but I'm really wondering why do you have not one but two masks on your face right now?

Dude, I'm just— I'm following CDC protocol.

Oh my goodness. Today, maybe today's CDC protocol. Tomorrow it'll change.

Like, guys, Kevin just went out of state.

That's true.

And he came back.

I know.

I don't know what weird variants he might be carrying.

Not only that, Craig, I went to New Mexico.

That's right. And, and let me tell you, butts up against the border, and we all know what happens at the border.

Not just that, not just the border.

It's not just wall building.

It's New Mexico's border.

New Mexico.

New Mexico has— okay, those of you who live in New Mexico, you know.

And he jumped in a wild tank of water.

If you don't know what the Blue Hole is, you need to go check out the Blue Hole. That place is awesome, dude.

Yeah, so I'm trying to be a responsible citizen by you not respecting the 6-foot rule. So I'm double masked.

I don't believe that at all, Greg.

Don't believe what?

That you're trying to be responsible.

No, it's— so it's all part of the plan, Kev. You don't know. So we're supposed to double mask.

Okay.

Even when we're outside.

Yeah, right.

And, uh, next year, no matter what, uh, election you're voting in, just write in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Okay, why?

Uh, because she's just gonna save us all.

Oh.

Yeah. Well, um, she's got all the answers.

I, I don't think that's true, first of all.

Right.

Second of all, I really don't think you need a mask, let alone 2 masks.

Right.

And you sure don't need it outside.

Okay, but we are inside.

We are inside, so I think we're good.

We're good for me to wear the mask, or I need to take them off?

You can do what you do, you, Craig.

Me do me?

But let me tell you—

wait, wait, wait—

nobody wants to listen to you with that mask on.

This is a free country.

It is. So you do you. You do whatever you want to.

Fantastic. But taking it off.

Oh, yep.

Oh, get that nastiness out of here.

Yeah, you're, you're just like Paul or Saul.

Okay.

New me going to Damascus.

Or the old me. The better me. Some form of me.

Did you get my joke?

No. No one gets your jokes.

Going to Damascus.

Who'd you pilfer that off of? I know you didn't come up with that.

No, that's totally me. All me. Yeah, it's a good one.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, other than the masks, how you doing?

I'm doing much better. I can breathe. Yeah, I feel like I'm getting oxygen.

Well, I feel a little uncomfortable all of a sudden.

You should, yeah, considering the places I've been.

No doubt. I've seen the things that you have been like holding up in your pictures, like which, which face would you go with?

It looks like— look, Like, when I hold up a dead rat, that should be more concerning to everyone. Those things are like one of the biggest disease vectors in the world.

Right. Oh, trust me, I was a little concerned. I was, I was looking through the screen going, I'm a little disturbed right now.

Okay. It was, it was a little bit of trick photography.

Okay.

So like, it wasn't as close to me as it looked.

Okay.

It wasn't also as big as I made it look in the picture. So, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't effective marketing.

No, it— I mean, I don't know what your numbers were on it, but it looked like it was pretty good. I mean, that's— it was good.

Yeah. So, and well, and like, part of the reason I was super proud of it is because it was a house that I had actually done something to. And what I had said that the product was going to do did what it— what I said it was going to do.

Oh, great.

Which was the rat was inside the house, it's going to eat my bait, and then it was going to go outside and die.

Which is—

ta-da!

Yeah, which is really great because the last thing you want is for the rat to stay inside and die. Correct.

Yeah. Although this time of year in Houston, I mean, like, yeah, it's gonna stink.

But not long.

Not long.

No.

So I mean, it'll be unpleasant for like 4 days.

That's 4 days longer than I want it to be unpleasant.

So, and fun trick for homeowners out there, if you do have a nasty smell in your house, there are some things that you can do. So one is charcoal. Oh, yeah.

But doesn't it need to be a specific type of charcoal? Like, don't go buy Match Light.

Right, right.

It's just like, it's gotta be—

it's like regular charcoal. Not like—

yeah, it's gotta be in there. Certain, certain name for it. I'm gonna—

oh man, just, just get like, don't get anything that's like, hey, matchlight charcoal, or just get like regular chunk charcoal.

Yeah. And one place you can get it actually is if you go to Walmart and go to the RV section, they have like a little container that is is that charcoal.

Yeah.

And you pull the top off and it, and it's already ready to go. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. It's pretty cheap.

Interesting. Yeah, actually, one time in Ukraine, somebody gave me charcoal tablets in order to settle an upset stomach.

Really?

And it worked. So that was cool.

Interesting.

But the other thing, so like charcoal works. Okay, cut an apple in half and set it near where the scent is the stinkiest. They're a natural odor absorber.

Really?

Um, so you— that's like— but that's like in a pinch. I mean, like, it's not as effective as activated charcoal. That's the—

that's what it's— that's the word I was looking for.

Um, and then the other one is there's a really great product out there called Air Sponge. Oh, um, that you can— you can pick it up on Amazon.

Okay.

Um, it just comes— it looks like a, uh, little tub of, um— I mean, it looks like a tub of sour cream is what it looks like. Oh, but I mean, like Until you open it.

Right.

It's like that same kind of plastic container.

Okay.

So you just open it, peel back the metal lid, and just set it near the stinky and it absorbs it. It's fantastic.

See, this is the kind of nuggets that you didn't know you were gonna get whenever you came to the Ryobi 40-volt—

That's right.

Trimmer and blower review.

Which some yahoo on our YouTube page, like from an episode like I don't know, like 4 or 5 months ago.

Yeah.

He was watching the review of the Nova P50, which is an incredible flashlight.

It is.

We're talking at the beginning of this, and like at the time, uh, Dogecoin and cryptocurrency stuff is just blowing up.

Right.

And he, he jumps on, he's like, where's the review for the Nova P50? And it's like, dude, just wait 5 minutes. Like, we're talking about stuff that's actually happened in the world.

Right.

Like, you want us to ignore cryptocurrency?

Right.

It's changing the world.

Yes.

Sorry for your 5 minutes. Yeah, not getting to the flashlight.

And we did get to the flashlight and it was awesome.

It was.

But don't be ugly.

Yeah.

Because we'll call you out on the podcast.

Well, not by name, except he's that one boob that commented on it. Go look, just go find the YouTube video, you'll find it.

That's right.

Sick him, fans. So yeah, so anyway, that's been going on.

Yeah, sounds good to me.

Yeah, so we're here to review Ryobi's new 40-volt trimmer and blower, and this is a package that you can only buy at Home Depot.

That's right. But before we get there, Craig—

Before we get there— oh, you have something?

No, not really. I just need to acknowledge— You just want to do your rub? We're going— well, I'm gonna do my best to do that.

All right.

We're going to say it correctly, and that is Ryobi.

Ryobi.

And when I say correctly—

We don't want any libel suits.

No, I mean, we, we know that these guys are going out of their way to pronounce at Ryobi on all of these, like, look at our new products. So Ryobi it is.

Yeah, it's like an hour of, hey, do you know how to say this? It's Ryobi.

That's right. Uh, even though we disagree, we're still gonna go along with it.

That's right.

But yes, it is a package deal only available at Home Depot, and right now it is for sale for $199.99.

What?

That's what it shows.

That's the wrong package.

Well, no, it's the same one that you bought.

No, mine's the brushless.

Oh, that's more expensive than this one. How much is it?

Uh, I— when I picked it up, I think it was like— Oh, there it is, $276.

I just— I— yeah, I just looked at the wrong one. So this one at $279.

$279.

There you go, $279. But what you get with that Is you get their, uh, 4 amp-hour battery and charger, and you get the brushless cordless, uh, trimmer and blower.

Yes.

Right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So, and it's— it is a big step up from the non-brushless to the brushless.

Right. So let's talk— we've mentioned this multiple times, right? But let's review what brushless means.

But you're, you're the expert here.

Okay, so it's pretty easy. Brushless— I mean, it's funny because you think brushless, that, that means that it's not— I, I don't really know what you think it means. What I thought it means is completely different than what it actually means, which is really simply it exerts more power when it needs more power.

Yes.

And less power when it needs less. So for example, let's take a drill. Let's say you're screwing, uh, a board to another board, if it's finding resistance, it's going to use more power to get through that board. If it's going in pretty simply, pretty easily, it just won't use as much power. So what it does is it saves the actual motor on the tool by not using as much power when it doesn't need it, but it also saves battery power as well.

Yeah.

So you're not using as much battery You only use as much as you need to. And I'll tell you, when I was kind of playing with these, these tools, you can definitely tell a difference in how hard you pull the trigger and how much power it's getting. Oh, for sure. It's pretty amazing.

Yes. Well, and what I've— with this particular trimmer, what I've noticed is a little bit of a delay, which is actually kind of nice.

Yeah.

Because, you know, as you want more power, you want— they want you to sort of intuitively squeeze the trigger a little bit more. And so there's that little bit of a delay so that you're not getting that, you know, immediate reaction.

Right.

Um, so it's— it, it, it doesn't feel right at first, but as you play with it, it, it really— it, it begins to make more sense.

Yeah, it takes, it takes a little bit of time to get used to because if you're used to a gas trimmer, you pull that trigger, It's gonna go.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

So this one's a little bit different.

It's, yeah, it's much more responsive. This one has just a little bit of delay, so it takes a little bit of use getting used to. I, I, I also should mention, so before we, we did this show, we just put out a post basically saying if you had to go buy a new set of, of lawn tools right now, what would you get?

Right.

Battery or gas powered?

Right.

Um, and, and as of right now, and we'll have to go back and check the stats here in a minute, but it, it was about a 50/50 split. And there was a couple caveats in there. It was like, well, like, it depends, like, how big is the yard? Different things like that. And so I would say without having the knowledge that I have now, I would probably agree with that sentiment.

Sure.

But if you'll go check my response to it, it's like battery, 100%. I do a battery every single time. Yep.

Yep.

I'd go battery.

Same with me there. I mean, it's not even a question.

Yeah.

Legitimately, Craig, I will not buy another lawn equipment tool that has gas engine.

My, my only skepticism revolves around the actual lawnmower. Yeah, well, I'm still, I'm still skeptical. And like, and I've seen them in action. Yeah, mostly push mowers. And they seem to perform really well. I like the noise level of them. They You know, what I've seen of the lawns that they're cutting, they seem to be doing a good job. I don't know anything about the maintenance on them. Yeah. But I'm really skeptical about the zero turns. Yeah, I just, I, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around them being able to produce a battery powerful enough to take care of a property my size.

Well, okay, so a couple of things is they're not doing it with one battery. There's multiple batteries on that thing.

Well, I would imagine so.

But that being said, I will agree with you in that, uh, my brother has used one. He doesn't own one. His lawnmower went down.

What did he use?

Um, he used an EGO.

Oh, is it EGO zero turn?

No, no, not a zero turn. It was just push mower.

Okay. But it was the latest—

it was their latest model. Um, it's the one that has, you know, dual blades for mulching, all that kind of stuff. And, um, he said that his grass was a little tall, and it wanted to bog down on him a little bit. So one of the— and where he lives, they've got fescue. That's their primary grass, which is a thick blade grass, but it's not nearly as thick as what we have down here with St. Augustine.

Okay.

And so one of the things that I'm— I mean, like right now, if I go like, I've I've been gone for weeks at a time. And when I get back, my lawn is like 6 inches tall.

Right, right.

And trying to get through it with my gas lawnmower, I'm having to use the side feed that— what is it called? Where it spits it out the side?

It's a chute.

Yeah, the chute. So I'll have to do that. And I'll either have to come back and rake it back up, or I'll sometimes I'll just mulch right back over that. Sometimes, but I don't, I don't know how it would perform when, if it had to go through something as thick as what I'm trying to get through at times. So I'm with you. I would be interested to know. And if Ryobi would like to send us one, I will test it out on my lawn.

Have we ever talked about bagging your grass versus mulching?

I don't think we have. But I mean, yes, we probably should.

I mean, just, just real briefly. Yeah. Um, so there's nothing wrong with mulching your grass, right? You just don't want to do it every time, right? Um, and, and the issue is thatch.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and so if you don't know what thatch is, as you mulch your grass, there actually is a layer of, you know, grass sediment that builds up at the base of the grass. And that's the mulch from the grass that you create, which can be a really good thing because lots of good nitrogen. that refertilizes the lawn.

Yep.

The problem is, is as that builds up over time, you can actually develop a situation where you can create a lot of diseases that are prevalent amongst grasses to, you know, be— to really thrive in those situations. So you don't want to, you don't want to mulch every single time. It's really healthy occasionally to bag it and then, you know, burn it or, you know, whatever you want. You can, you can create a separate mulch pile for that if you have the space for that. But I will tell you, if you do, you know, compost those, those grass clippings, you can get a really funky organic smell. Sure. It's very similar to like a dead rat.

Yeah. Yeah, it's what I've heard. It's kind of an every other time.

That's probably a good rule.

Or, or every third time. Yeah. Bag it. And that becomes difficult.

It sounds like for me, like, it's next to impossible. Sure.

Well, yeah, whenever you got a huge yard.

Well, I mean, just— and like when you're doing a zero turn, like, yeah, what are you doing?

It's really not an option.

Oh, I mean, like, they make bagging options for zero turns. I'm just not willing to, to do that attachment.

Not only that, like, I mean, for me, one of the things that's difficult is, to be honest, if, if I bagged my yard, I've done it. It's about 14 bags.

Really? Yes.

And it's a ton.

Is that because you wait so long to mow?

Or— Well, that's a week. Yeah, it's a week. And it's just thick. I've got thick— I've got a thick yard. Plus, I mean, I got, I got like, my yard is 12,000 square feet. Okay. And I got a, what is that, 2,400 square foot house with a garage. So it's maybe another, I don't know, 800 square feet, something like that. So it's, it's a pretty big size yard. Um, it just takes a lot of bags. And the problem is where I live, they don't have a bagging service. You can put it out with your, with your, uh, trash.

Yeah.

But they only take 4 bags if you do that in my, in my— so, so you gotta figure out a place to take it.

Yeah.

So it's, it's tough sometimes.

Dude, bring it over here next time.

I can. What are you gonna do with it?

I'm gonna put it out in the pasture.

Okay.

Let it fertilize my little pasture.

I'll do it.

Got some rocky spaces. I can use that.

All right, well, you asked for it. Load it up in the Excursion. Here it comes.

Like, it's bad if I make my place higher.

Not bad at all, actually.

Yeah.

Okay, well, that's not why we're here, but it is interesting to know that a lot of people— I mean, I think this is just common, like, a lot of people are still on the fence about battery versus gas?

I think they're still skeptical. I, I, and for good reason. I mean, it took a long time for this technology to catch up. Um, and like, going back to the brushless stuff, I think for me, in my brain, the way I categorize it, okay, I was like, that's a smart motor.

Yeah.

You know, and so like, then I'm attaching a smart battery to a smart motor, right? Um, and so if you ever open one of those things up, I mean, like, there's lots of chips in there telling that that motor how to function and how to respond and how to do some different things, kind of like what you're talking about. Um, and, and, and so it's, you know, it's just a more high-tech motor is really what you're dealing with.

Yeah.

I mean, they just say brushless because it's an easy way to categorize it.

Well, yeah, it's, yeah, it's just, yes. And in doing so, there's a couple of different things that you benefit from. One of them is just general maintenance. You benefit from the lack of maintenance, right? Um, and honestly, for me, uh, so I, I've got an EGO trimmer. We've talked about it before. We've— we have reviewed it before. We've done a little video review of it as well. I honestly, whenever I'm done with it, I'll just take it over to one of my faucets, turn the faucet on, and I'll just like wash it off.

Yeah.

And just, just kind of clean it a little bit. And really, that's the only maintenance that I do on that because it doesn't have gas, it doesn't have oil, it doesn't have any of these things. And like, I don't even have a pull chain. I mean, I've had to replace pull chains on multiple gas engines, whether it's a trimmer or lawnmower or whatever, because those things, they go bad, right? They dry out. They— you pull too hard and it just comes right off or whatever. And so there's just— I mean, there's no maintenance on these things. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. So, so anyway, so this is the Ryobi one. Yep. It's 40-volt.

Brushless.

Um, and then it's also the extended package.

Yeah, and that, that's actually a really cool thing. Uh, so there are multiple tools that go on that if you want to, right?

Right. And we'll, we'll get into that list later. But I mean, like, so, so basically this is a, a weed trimmer and a blower.

Right.

Um, it's not— so it's a, it's a great package just right off the bat. It is a very valuable package. It only comes with one battery though.

Yeah.

So, um, which we'll, we'll talk about that here, here in a minute. Um, but there is some assembly required. Um, I think it comes in like 6 different pieces when you take it out of the box. So like, if you're uncomfortable putting one of these things together, and like what I mean by that is like on the trimmer itself, there's the, the 2 poles that you end up having to line up and, and put in there. But there's also like the, the trim guard down at the bottom. there's the handle that you have to put on the pole, and then there's also the battery that has to go onto it. So like all those things have to come together before you can ever use it right out. But it is ready

to use right out of the box. Sure, it already has string loaded in the, in the, the base of the trim. Um, and I did not check to see if the battery was charged, but that could be based on how long it's sitting on the shelf.

Yeah, you never know.

So there's all kinds of things. I charged my battery before I used it. Um, it is a very cool battery. It's not as it's not as heavy as I thought it was going to be.

No.

Um, and it, you know, it has the smart LEDs on it to tell you how much it's charged, see if it's ready to go. The charger itself is very low profile.

It will— not only that, it's, it's lightweight. Like, it— there's not really much to it.

Yeah.

Which is awesome. Yeah.

And my— I think my only complaint with that is the charger comes in 2 pieces.

Okay.

So like, it's sort of like, you like your charger for your Apple phone, like you get the thing that plugs into the wall, and then you get the cord, right? And that's almost exactly how this works, just in reverse.

Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Um, and so you have the thing that attaches the battery, and then you have the cord that plugs into that, right? And I, I guess for me, the only downside to that is like, what happens if you lose the cord, right? I mean, because it's not a— from what I gathered from when I plugged it in, I was like, I don't know, this doesn't look like any other cord that I have. So if I lose this one, then we're done. I'm done. Like, I've got to go buy a whole new charger, which probably means I got to buy a whole new battery. Yeah, and those batteries ain't cheap.

No, they're not. I will tell you this though, um, I had on just one of the regular 18-volt, uh, chargers, uh, I had one go bad on me. And I, man, I probably had that thing 4 or 5 years, right? And, uh, just stopped working. I took it back to Home Depot and just said, look, this thing stopped working. Um, what kind of warranty does it have? And they said, well, do you have the receipt or the box or anything? I was like, no, of course not. They were like, all right, go get another one. So I went and got another one. They exchanged it right there.

So I will tell everybody this. I use Ryobi products pretty much every day in my business, right? Um, I have bought multiple of their backpack sprayers. Um, and I even had— so just recently they changed the model on the backpack sprayer. It's the same backpack sprayer, right? But they just changed the design on it, right? So I had an older model that really all that went wrong with it is it's supposed to be sort of like a, a bell valve. So like when you don't pull the trigger, when you're not pulling the trigger, the pump shouldn't be running, right?

Right.

Well, this one, even if you weren't pulling the trigger, the pump was running even though it wasn't, you know, pumping anything out of it.

So it was actually like wasting battery.

Wasting battery all the time, right? Um, so I took it back in and I was like, hey, the, the pump won't ever turn off. And they're like, oh, do you want a refund? And I was like, no, I just, I want another one. And they're like, oh, we'll just go get it. I've had this happen 3 times. Oh. And every time they just go get— so, and like, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this because It speaks to Home Depot and Ryobi's credit. And it's not me trying to take advantage of them at all. But I've had 2 occasions now where I've taken everything back in. Right?

The battery and everything.

The battery that— because when you buy the backpack sprayer that comes with the battery, the charger and everything.

Yeah.

And I'll put it all on the table. And they're like, we don't want the battery.

So you get to keep the battery.

And I'm like, seriously? And they're like, no, we can't use it. And I'm like, okay, I'll keep it.

Wow.

And, and the charger too. They don't want that either.

Wow.

Like every time they just want the tool back.

Wow.

And they're like, just go get another one.

So then I walk out of the store with a brand new battery, with a brand new charger and the tool and my old battery.

So now I've got 2 batteries. Wow. So like, I am neck deep in Ryobi batteries.

Nice.

Because I've exchanged these things like 3 times. Wow. And every time they don't want the battery back.

Yeah.

I don't know why.

Well, what I do know is that they, I mean, okay, someone could definitely look at this and go, oh, well, they're just, it's just a failing product. Okay. Well, the reality of it is you use the crap out of that thing. Use it all the time. They— most people are not using it as much as you are. Even still, they stand behind their product.

Well, I put it in perspective. I use the backpack sprayer— well, like, I have multiple backpack sprayers.

Yeah.

And we probably use them 6 to 7 hours a day.

Yeah. And that's what, 5, 6 hours, 5 or 6 days a week? Yes.

That's, that's significant. We beat the hell out of them. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so, and like, and they, they, and so like when we found out that like, hey, like they actually stand behind their product, they don't, they're not asking us like, well, how often are you using this? What'd you do to this thing? It's like, no, like just go get another one. Right. Okay. Right. I'm a fan forever.

Yeah. And, and I know people have lots of, they have beefs with Ryobi. I get it.

They do.

But, but at the end of the day, they continue to come out with stuff like this. I mean, you're, you're getting a, a brushless trimmer.

Mm-hmm.

And blower and a battery and a charger for $279. That's, that's a great deal. If you go start researching what it would cost you to buy just a trimmer and a blower of equal like do the equal job, right?

It's $400 or $500.

$400 or $500 easy, right? Yeah, right.

And, and I know because I did the math. I mean, I went and looked.

Yeah. And, and on— so you're getting, you're getting all of that. You've got no maintenance on the deal, no gas that you're having to buy on this stuff. So all of a sudden you're, you're all— you're what, like 60% of the price, maybe 70% of the price, right? So you're saving money you're not having to spend money on the back end either, and you're getting— I'm telling you guys, you're getting a really, really good product.

Well, and I think typically— I think normally this package sells for $300, right? And I'm not doing that to try and sell them for them. I mean, they're just on sale right now, so it's like $279, right? Um, I don't know how— and I think that's also part of their, uh, their battery sale that's going on right now, because it's like if you buy the 2 Batteries, you get a tool for free.

Right.

Um, now I will say that none of the tools that you get for free are the brushless tools.

No, and they're typically like the $40 to $60 tools. They're, they're some of the cheaper ones.

But still, I mean, like, still, it's a free tool. I will tell you guys, I mean, if you want the most bang for your buck, it's, it's $99 for 2, uh, and these are the 18-volt batteries.

Yeah.

It's, it's $100 for 2 of these batteries with the charger. The most bang for your buck is going to be the angle grinder.

Oh, okay.

I think that's actually like a $70 tool normally.

Nice.

But you, they'll give you the angle grinder for free.

Yeah.

So I mean, like, that's, I mean, you're basically paying $20 for an angle grinder.

Sure.

With 2 batteries. Yeah.

That's awesome. It's a great deal.

So anyway, I think that's part of the sale that they have going on right now. Um, so anyway, I, I picked this up. Um, I've got, I've got my property and I've got another property down the street that I'm taking care of. I was tired of schlepping gas up and down the road. Um, and And my, my only other leaf blower was a backpack leaf blower. So like, what I was having to do is I was having to load up my mower with the trimmer and the blower to go down to the other property and take care of that one. And I was like, this is stupid.

Yeah.

So I was like, like, look, I'm gonna invest in the battery-powered stuff. And, and I'm gonna see how it goes. That way we can review it, we can actually talk about it honestly. So real quick, this particular package Again, it comes with one battery, one charger, the trimmer, and the blower. The blower is not the most powerful blower that they make on the 40-volt line, right? It's actually 2 steps down from their most powerful blower.

And this one has 550 cubic feet per minute.

Yes.

It's what it does, which is, which is not insignificant.

No, no, no. It's— I mean, like, I've, I've tried it on multiple things. Like, it actually works really, really well.

Does.

Um, I will—

It's not, it's not gonna blow all the leaves out of your yard if you live in Arkansas.

Probably not.

But it would do a pretty good job.

So, and the other thing I will say is if you just pull the trigger, I mean, it's an okay blower, right? But it has a turbo button, right? I mean, like, I'm gonna be honest, in order for it to work really effectively, you gotta hit the turbo button.

No doubt.

But it's gonna suck your battery much quicker. Yeah. But I think you You'll actually save the battery by hitting the turbo button because it's gonna take you so much longer. Yeah. Using just the regular trigger pull. Right. Most of the time.

Right.

To get done what you want to get done.

Right. No, I would agree. Let's just talk real for a moment.

And I will say it's not— I actually don't think it's a great leaf blower.

No, it's probably a good like blow your porch off. Your porch off.

That's what it's for.

Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, your driveway, something like that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Get the, get the pine needles off, get the leaves off, get the dirt off, whatever. It's gonna do— actually, it's gonna do a great— you're gonna be really happy with it.

Yeah, no, I've blown my driveway off several times with it now.

Absolutely. I actually did too. So thank you. You're welcome. But no, it does a great job. So you got a— it's got a 4 amp-hour battery. To put that in perspective, Um, 1 amp-hour, it's kind of hard. People, it depends on how much of that, you know, trigger you're pulling, right?

Right.

But with a 4 amp-hour battery, if you're using it full, you know, all the way, um, and let's say you're using on your trimmer, you probably are gonna get, what, 45 minutes out of that deal? Is that what you're guessing? I mean, that when I You can't exactly find a calculator online because it's gonna matter how much power you're actually putting it through. But from what I can tell, for an amp-hour, you're gonna get, um, I don't know, 15 minutes, uh, per amp-hour, something like that, if you're full bore. That's somewhere around what I'm, what I'm finding.

Okay. Um, so I mean, I'm gonna speak to this in a minute because I, I decided to put this thing through its paces. Okay.

I'm interested.

Yeah. So, I mean, you want me to go into that right now?

Sure.

So, I mean, when I, when I mow my yard, it's typically what I'm mowing is about 2 acres. Um, and so, you know, I had mowed and I was like, okay, like, I know what I usually trim. I'm gonna go ahead and trim that, plus all the other things I usually don't get to in order to make the lawn look really, really nice. Okay. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that. And then there's also some areas that are really, really thick. And I want to put it through that after I've done everything else to see if it has enough power to do these thicker things. So I did that. Okay. It performed great. Okay, so and it did all of it on— so it has 2

speeds, high and low, basically.

Okay.

So and I ran it on low. Pretty much the whole time because I was getting exactly what I needed to trim what I needed to trim out of it. Like, it had plenty of power.

Sure.

When I got done with the regular stuff, I had some really tall grass. When I say tall grass, it was, it was definitely more than 12 inches.

Okay.

Some areas that I just had been neglecting.

Yeah.

Needed some attention. I was like, you know what, got a brand new trimmer. I'm gonna see what it's got. See how this brushless motor actually responds to it. It ate it up.

Really? It was crazy.

And I was, I was thinking like, okay, maybe the battery's run down by now because it usually takes me about 45 minutes to trim everything once I get done mowing all the 2 acres.

And at that point, you've still got more to do.

Yes.

You just normally don't get to it.

Right.

Okay.

I run out of time or energy or whatever it is. And I was like, okay, let's go ahead and do this. So, I mean, I ate through that and I was like, well, darn. Okay, this is actually really good. Like, and it performed really, really well. I never had to load any more string. It actually comes with some really nice string. This is actually a good thing to mention. If you have thicker brush, and I did not switch over for this one, it actually has an additional blade that you can detach and then put on. That's instead of a string trimmer, it's one of those, I don't know, it's like a tooth, sawtooth blade.

Yeah.

That you can put on there.

Yeah.

And it's a plastic sawtooth blade, but it's a sawtooth blade.

Right. And so—

Cool.

Those things are really great. They're typically what, like 4 inches?

Yeah.

And there's 2 of them.

Yeah, so I didn't try that one yet, but it does come with that.

Cool.

Um, and then the, the string loading, it's not as cool as the EGO because the EGO has that cool button feature that auto loads it, but it does have a ratcheting load, right, which is super cool.

So basically you put the line through the head and you just turn it and it ratchets it in there yourself.

What's really— what I really like about it is you put one really long piece in all the way through and you try and get it as equal as possible And then you just ratchet it up and then it sucks it up. And then as you need more, you just hit it and it puts out more.

Perfect.

So yeah, it's fantastic. Um, have zero complaints about that.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, I mean, I— and it does have like a safety feature on the trigger, so it has like a dual trigger.

Yeah.

You have to fold the other one in before you can actually pull the trigger.

Yep.

Um, but everything else is pretty much like a standard trimmer. It has the, the trim guard, which will cut the, the line if it gets too long.

Yeah.

The handle is very adjustable. It's just on a regular wing nut that you can tighten and loosen and, you know, put it whatever angle you like. But like, it's way lighter than my normal string trimmer.

Yeah. And, and that's, that's something I was going to mention. Even with that 4 amp-hour battery, which is not a light battery, still a lot less weight in your hands, which produces less fatigue, right, on you. But the other thing is just so quiet.

Yes.

It's so quiet. I mean, you don't— I mean, I typically—

It really only makes noise if you're hitting the grass. Right.

And that's noise you're gonna get with a gas trimmer too. I mean, but I mean, I listen to podcasts all the time while I'm doing yard work.

Oh yeah, that was—

I can—

well, that's what I was telling you before. I think this is, this is like the millennial play. Like everyone's outside mowing their lawn with their earbuds in. Yes, they can, because they can actually listen to their music. They can listen to their podcasts. They can listen to whatever goofy thing they want to listen to. And they can actually hear it.

Right.

So I tested that out as well. It was fantastic.

Yeah.

So, um, yeah, the— so here was the thing that blew me away.

Okay.

Is, you know, we've talked about this several times before. You know, I got a pretty good-sized piece of property, and so like it's about 2 acres that I have to mow and trim, um, when I, when I do, do the lawn. So I was like, okay, I'm done trimming. I've done everything I normally do. I've done some more. I've done some thick grass. Okay, I was like, Let's see if the battery has any juice left for the blower. Okay, because I've only got the one battery. So I did that. I had plenty of juice.

Really?

Yes. I blew off everything I wanted to blow off. Nice. I blew off the driveway, I blew off the porch, I blew off the deck. Yeah, no problem.

I think, I think that's a testament to that brushless motor. Probably more, probably more so than it is how good that 4 amp-hour battery is or isn't. So I've— my, my battery that I've got for my EGO trimmer is a 2.5 amp-hour. So it's not, it's not as big. But that being said, the brushless motor, man, you're just saving power when you're not using it. So it's, it's, it's such a smart play. I mean, you, you were— I think it is well worth your money to spend a little bit more on the brushless tools.

Mm-hmm.

You're gonna save yourself a headache by not having to buy as many batteries, not having to switch them out as often, and just getting, getting a better experience while using them.

Yeah. So yeah, one, one thing I forgot to mention about the blower, um, is it does have an adjustable handle.

Oh, it does?

So it has like a, it has like a little plastic wing nut that you can tighten and loosen to adjust the angle of the handle.

Okay.

So, which is where the trigger is. So it doesn't really matter You just pick an angle that's comfortable for you, tighten the wing nut down, and then you just go to business.

Yeah.

So, um, the other thing that we haven't talked about yet is the extended package. I know we said we were going to circle back around to that, right? Um, to me, this is the thing that actually makes it one of the more valuable aspects to the package, are the, uh, what do you call it, the accessories that you can add on. Yeah, to, to this thing. So, um, I know that there's a tiller.

Yeah, I can tell you what they are. So there's a, um, it's called— they call it the expanded system.

Expanded system. Sorry.

So they've got a pole saw.

Yep.

They've got a, uh, it's another— it's a, it's a, it's a blower. Yes, they have a blower. It's, it's a little bit— it's kind of funny looking.

It is. It's weird. I don't know. That's the one on there I was like, what the heck were you guys thinking?

Well, it's to just blow off. Like, I think what it's for is it's also got an edger attachment. So you can— I think you can go use your edger attachment and then you can put that blower on there and like blow kind of down the edge line if you want to.

Well, like, but how much is that edger? Can you see that?

I don't know.

I mean, not the edger, the blower.

It's— I don't know.

I think, I think each one of those is about $100. About $100.

Yeah. So I mean, you're— Buy the package and just buy the package and get that. Yeah.

So because the blower that it comes with is way better than that one.

Exactly. No, it really, really is.

So it's like not as awkward to use. It looks like you're like shooting a fire hose or something. It's weird.

Yeah, it's, it is weird. Uh, so they got the trimmer, uh, the edger, I mean. Um, then they've also got a tiller, like a little cultivator.

That's my favorite one in the whole set.

I mean, if you've got any little flower beds, I mean, you're not, you're not going to be tilling up a garden. But if you've got a flower bed or something like that, that you just want to kind of keep looking nice. That's— that thing is— that's legit.

I think you could do a garden. You can do garden rows with that thing.

I mean, up and down the middle of them you can, but if you're like trying to till a whole like area, it's not gonna do—

Like, get you a few batteries. Yeah, exactly.

Um, so it's got the, uh, it's got the tiller attachment. It's also got a brush. The only— it's a sweeper is what they call it. Um, but basically if you like— at my house I've got this area that has, um, like, like loose gravel. And sometimes that stuff gets out into the, like, the driveway or the porch or whatever. And they, they show whenever people are using these to kind of show what they do, they show like, like brushing those, that, that gravel back into place. But it's just a brush. It's a, it's a spinning brush, basically.

Power brush.

Exactly. And then they have a snow snowblower attachment? Yes. So then the last thing is, um, it's, it's, yeah, it's like a snowblower. Um, which, and I don't know how good it is.

I mean, effective here, like it's 2 days out of every 10 years.

And honestly, it would have done nothing for what we had.

That's true.

Back in February, I don't think it would have done the job, y'all. But it does, it does have that as well. So, um, there's, there's multiple different options they've got.

I mean, okay, so like really, there's 2 on there that are really functional. The, the pole saw.

Yep.

And the trimmer.

And the, the, and yes, and the tiller.

Well, okay, so 3. So 3. Yeah, yeah.

And that, and—

But I don't think most people would use the tiller. I don't think, I don't think many people are that serious about their flower beds or serious about their gardens. I mean, like, as far as like functionality around the yard, pole saw and, and, and edger. Um, but I, I would definitely enjoy the tiller. I garden I like having a garden. Yeah, our friend Jill would probably really like that. Sure. Um, you know.

Yeah, I, I would say definitely that pole saw is awesome though.

Oh yeah.

I mean, pole saws are— I've got, dude, I've got a manual pole saw. It's just a— it's a beast, man.

Are you talking about one that you actually like ratchet back and forth?

Yes.

Why do you even have that?

I don't know, it was given to me.

It's like, get a ladder and a chainsaw.

Yeah, it'd be a whole lot easier, but I mean, it does a job if you're just trying to get, you know, like little 1-inch branches down that you don't want to keep growing. It does the job pretty easily on that. But like, man, those pole saw attachments are awesome.

Is that one of the— are you talking about the ones that have like the little like curve to them? I hate those things.

I do too.

Yeah.

Why do you think someone gave it to me? They're like, I don't want this piece of junk.

I know what to do. Let's give this to Kevin and watch him try and use it. It's exactly right.

I think there is a camera on it now that you say that.

I'm just kidding.

Just kidding. All right, well, what else? I mean, I mean, I feel like we've, we've covered the bases on this. Is there something we're not talking about yet?

I don't think so.

Okay.

I mean, like, I talked about everything that comes with, um, I mean, some assembly required, but I mean, like, all in all, super, super happy with it. Um, I like, you know, it's, it's weird because it doesn't make as much noise. For some reason, I'm not as scared to let my children hold it.

Oh, interesting.

know what I mean? Like, for some reason, because it's louder, like, I don't want my children holding the trimmer. But like, now that like I have this one, I'm like, hey, you guys want to try this? Like, it doesn't seem as dangerous.

Which it probably is, but, but it— but as far as their, their ears go—

Where their ears go. But like, you know, well, even like, it's a combustion, combustion engine on the thing, and like, you can burn yourself on the exhaust of those if you don't know where to hold it and all those kinds of things. So like, I just feel safer. Like if my kid were to come to me like, hey, can I, can I help out with that? Like, you know what?

Yeah, why not?

Why not?

Yeah.

Knock yourself out.

Yep.

Cool. I feel much better about this now.

Yeah, sure.

So, well, I will say, um, the— I think, I think they could have done a better job on the expanded, uh, attachment.

Oh, you mean how it actually attaches to the—

Yes.

The battery side of the pole?

It's, it's basically It's just like a slip ball with a ratchet.

Oh, is it similar?

It's very low-tech.

Is it similar to like moving the seat on a bicycle up and down? One of those like you pull the thing and it pulls out and then you push it.

So there's one of— there's an aspect of it to that.

Okay.

But you know how like there's some metal rods that as you slide them out, there's a little metal piece that pops into a hole?

Yep.

It's one of the— I don't even know what you call that, but it's the same thing. And I think that's just so you line it up properly.

Yeah, I know what it's called. It's called the thingy that you line up with the poppet hole. That's the one. That's the one.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's the— that's— well, that's the official name.

That's the best description. And now everyone knows. I, I think everyone should know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah.

So, and like, you get the satisfaction of like—

Yeah, it's the one that whenever you try to take it apart, your, your thumb bleeds.

Yes. Because you can't get it down far enough.

That's right. As soon as you do, it just like pinches.

Yes.

It's like blood.

Yeah. So like, but for whatever reason, we keep going back to it.

Yeah, I know.

So anyway, that's what they use to attach the, the expanded packages or, you know, accessories to this unit. Um, and like, it's not bad. Um, but I, I think, you know, as, as creative and innovative as they've been with the rest of it, I really think they could have come up with something better. Yeah, here. Um, you know, either— I don't know, like, there's lots of different— and they may have had reasons for doing it. I don't know. I'm not an engineer. I'm just not like blown away by it. Like, yeah, it didn't like impress me.

Yeah, well, you only paid $279 for it.

I'm just kidding.

It's worth it. I, I'm serious. I think, guys, as you're, as you're trying to figure out like, what is my next tool going to be whenever it comes to lawn equipment? I need to buy a new trimmer. I need to buy a new blower, those sorts of things. Do not discount battery-operated products, and do not discount a company like Ryobi who's continuing to lead the market in sales and in number of, of tools available there. And, and their warranty is really good.

Yeah.

I mean, things are— they're, they're doing a great job with a lot of things. So, um, don't be afraid of them. I think that, uh, that you'll find that you're happy with it, especially if you're a, you know, once a week, once every other week type of person that does their lawn. You're gonna be happy.

Yeah, my— well, our buddy Chris Turner sent me a video last week of the Ryobi floating light show and Bluetooth speaker. That's awesome. Like actually functioning in a pool at night.

Nice. I have to have one now. That good?

It's that good. Okay, I gotta find one.

Okay.

Yeah, I'll show you the video after the show. It'll— okay, he sent it to me as a joke, but I was like, man, I gotta have one.

You just— you realize you're just wetting my palate here.

Like, I need this. I need it. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Well, cool deal, man. Uh, well, thank you, uh, everyone for tuning in to the episode today. Uh, we appreciate you continuing to consume our content.

If you Haven't already. That just sounds weird. It makes it sound like they're eating our content.

Consuming. Yeah. I always thought, by the way, like, do you remember? I guess they're still on there. Like it says, this tag should not be removed except by the consumer.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I'm not going to eat it. Like, I guess I can't remove the tag. That wouldn't be me under penalty of law. I'm like, I'm not going to eat it.

It's like you need a stool sample afterwards.

I don't know what you're getting at here, but anyway. Yeah, so if you haven't already, go ahead and, uh, like, subscribe, do all the thingies, click the bell, do all that kind of stuff. We appreciate it. Uh, send us a rating and review on iTunes.

That would be really, really helpful. Um, we're, we're really happy to continue to produce content for you each and every Tuesday.

So thanks for coming. Tell all your friends about us. Until next time, we'll see you later.

See ya.