Consumer Reports tested some from DeWalt, Ego, Greenworks, and others to see which ones came out on top
Buying battery tools from a single brand can save you money and ensure that you always have a charged battery on hand.
By Yasmeen Khan
Tool brands have invested heavily in developing battery-powered lawn and outdoor equipment over the past decade, and it shows. In multiple categories, such as string trimmers and leaf blowers, battery-powered versions outsell their gas counterparts. And within the past few years, CR tests have found that even some of the most power-hungry tools, like chainsaws and lawn mowers, have battery models that match or beat the performance of gas tools.
With more options for all kinds of tasks, many people who use a lot of tools are looking to invest in one battery platform—that is, a single line of products with batteries that can be used interchangeably.
Buying into a battery platform means you’re buying from a suite of tools from the same brand, using lithium-ion batteries of the same voltage. You only need one type of charger, and you can have an additional battery charged and ready to go. You may also have the option of purchasing more tools without a battery and charger, saving you about 30 percent.
With those advantages in mind, Consumer Reports has developed ratings of battery tool brands in order to give our members an idea of how a line of tools performs as a whole.
Our brand-level ratings arrive at the ideal time. Battery lawn tools have never been more popular, and they’re the best they’ve ever been. But it’s been a journey to get to this point.
Consumer Reports tested an early batch of battery-powered string trimmers back in 2012. “There was only one that stood out as actually not bad,” says Misha Kollontai, who tests outdoor power equipment. Over the next several years, CR product testing picked up marginal but steady improvements in string trimmers and other tools. In 2016, we even tested a battery mower that rivaled the performance of a gas mower.
And in 2019, when Kollontai tested another group of string trimmers, there was a noticeable shift. “There were a significant number of models that I wouldn’t hesitate to pick over a gas unit,” he says.
In the past few years alone, companies have managed to take several categories of outdoor power tools to another level. Kollontai compares the innovation to an arms race.
“Each and every manufacturer had to make a better battery every single year and design it for more and more products every year,” he says. “So they were investing insane money into research and development” about how to make a battery better.
Consumer Reports has been testing battery-powered tools for well over a decade. We’ve evaluated thousands of products across nine categories. We’ve also heard from tens of thousands of our members about their experiences with battery equipment. We’ve used all of that information to determine which battery platforms are worth the investment.
Best Battery-Powered Tool Brands
We created an Overall Score for a brand’s highest-performing string trimmer, leaf blower, chainsaw, hedge trimmer, lawn mower, drill, and impact driver. Not every brand offers each of these products (we chose platforms that offered at least three), while some brands offer more than one model in each category.
To come up with the Overall Score, Kollontai pulled together data from CR’s own individual product tests and averaged the scores of the highest-performing tools of each type from each platform.
We’re not currently including battery-powered snow blowers or pressure washers in the Overall Score because our experts say they haven’t yet caught up to the performance of their gas counterparts. But information about them is included on the model pages for each battery platform. Also keep in mind that we created the Overall Scores based on the best tools that Consumer Reports has tested from each brand. If you see N/A in the ratings for a particular tool, it’s either because that brand doesn’t make that tool or because we haven’t tested it yet.
Ego POWER+
Ego’s battery outdoor equipment consistently gets top marks from our testers. Consumer Reports has rated the following products from its 56-volt battery platform: string trimmers, leaf blowers, chainsaws, a hedge trimmer, and lawn mowers. This system of tools also includes a highly rated snow blower and a very good pressure washer, though they didn’t factor into the Overall Score. Tools can be bought with and without a battery, and you can buy a charger that takes two batteries at once. Ego also has a three-year warranty for its batteries.
Makita LXT
The power tools tested by Consumer Reports in Makita’s 18-volt battery platform include string trimmers, leaf blowers, chainsaws, lawn mowers, cordless drills, and impact drivers. Tools can be purchased with and without a battery, and you can buy a charger that takes two batteries at once. Batteries are sold in a variety of capacities ranging from 2Ah to 6Ah. Makita has a three-year warranty for its batteries.
Makita XGT
The power tools tested by Consumer Reports in this 40-volt battery platform by Makita include a string trimmer, leaf blower, chainsaw, lawn mower, and cordless drill. Tools can be purchased with and without a battery, and you can buy a charger that takes two batteries at once. Batteries are sold in a variety of capacities ranging from 2.5Ah to 8Ah. Makita has a three-year warranty for its batteries.
Ryobi 40V HP
Ryobi’s 40-volt platform includes string trimmers, leaf blowers, chainsaws, a hedge trimmer, and lawn mowers. It also includes pressure washers and snow blowers (which didn’t factor into the platform’s Overall Score). You can get batteries of different capacities ranging from 2Ah to 12Ah. Ryobi batteries come with a three-year warranty.
Hart 40V
The power tools tested by Consumer Reports in Hart’s 40-volt platform include a string trimmer, leaf blowers, chainsaws, and a lawn mower. Batteries come with a three-year warranty and range in capacity from 1.5Ah to 6Ah. Tools can be purchased with or without a battery.
Greenworks 60V
The power tools tested by Consumer Reports in this 60-volt platform from Greenworks include a string trimmer, leaf blower, hedge trimmer, and lawn mower. The platform also includes a pressure washer and snow blowers, which didn’t factor into the Overall Score. Batteries are sold in a variety of capacities from 2Ah to 8Ah. Greenworks 60-volt batteries come with a four-year warranty.
How to Use Our Battery Platform Ratings
In addition to an Overall Score for performance, our ratings of battery-powered tool brands include performance information for the tools themselves, along with information on battery warranties. We also link to the products Consumer Reports has tested in each platform, where you can get a more detailed picture of individual tools. For example, if a tool’s weight is a deciding factor (and we highly recommend considering a tool’s weight because that leaf blower isn’t going to carry itself), you can find it, plus other details.
Before investing in any power tool, let alone a set, you’ll want to think about the projects you’ll be taking on. Do you have a large yard with a lot of lawn to mow and leaves to blow? Are you using a string trimmer for grass along a fence line or do you need a hedge trimmer to clear heartier weeds a few times a year? Perhaps the tool you’re reaching for most often is a drill or impact driver for ambitious DIY projects. Check out CR’s buying guides when considering individual products and how powerful they should be.
What’s the Best Voltage (and Capacity) for Battery Tools?
The battery’s voltage is one measure of how much power the tool has. And it’s an important factor when shopping for a tool platform.
If you’re looking to invest in a suite of tools with interchangeable batteries, you should make sure the tools come from the same brand and use batteries specifically designed for that platform. By and large, the tools that fall within a brand’s battery platform are unified by the voltage required to power them. For instance, you can’t use a Makita brand 18-volt leaf blower with a Makita brand 40-volt battery.
There are some cases where tools in a brand’s platform have varying voltage requirements but can be powered by the same battery. The point is, just make sure that you’re buying tools and batteries designed for the same system.
To determine what voltage tools you need, remember that it roughly correlates with power. That’s particularly true within a brand: Tools powered by Makita’s 40-volt battery are almost certain to offer more power than those powered by its 18-volt battery. But power and performance are two different things. That’s why one brand’s 60-volt chainsaw might outperform another brand’s 80-volt model in our ratings.
Among brands that offer two voltage options, you’ll usually find that the lower-voltage battery is compatible with tools like a cordless drill or impact driver, while the higher-voltage battery will generally pair with more power-hungry tools, like a snow blower.
Answering the question of which voltage is best goes back to assessing your needs. For example, say that getting a new leaf blower is a priority, and you’re looking for a battery platform that includes one.
“If the amount of leaves that you’re blowing is coming from 10 maples sitting in your yard, you’re going to need more power,” Kollontai says. “But if you’re just blowing a few leaves off your deck every once in a while, that might not be what you’re looking for.”
Here’s another thing to keep in mind about batteries: While the tools in a battery platform will all be compatible with the same type of battery, some tools will require more batteries than others. For example, a string trimmer may require one battery, while a lawn mower may require two or more.
And finally, an important note of caution when it comes to batteries: Avoid third-party or counterfeit batteries on the market. Only batteries made by the tool manufacturer have actually been tested for each of the products in a battery platform.
The Power Tool Institute says that any lithium-ion battery that’s not made by the brand to work with a specific tool or charger can result in a number of problems, including poor performance, a shorter life, damage to the tool or charger, and possibly voiding your tool warranty. A bum battery could also potentially put you and others in danger by bursting and causing a fire.
A Note About Battery Capacity
While all batteries in the platform will have the same voltage, the batteries in a tool platform may have different capacities, measured in amp-hours. The capacity is like the fuel tank of the battery: The higher the amp hours, the longer the run time. So you can expect that a battery with a capacity of 5Ah will have a longer run time than a 2.5Ah battery.
Keep in mind that the batteries in a lawn mower will likely have a higher capacity than the battery that comes with the string trimmer on the same platform. The higher-capacity batteries will also be larger and heavier, too.
So if you have a string trimmer and lawn mower from the same battery tool platform, you can use a battery from the mower for the string trimmer. But you might be using a pretty jumbo battery for the tool and task at hand. Conversely, you can use the smaller string trimmer battery in the mower, but you should expect a shorter run time than you’d get from the beefier mower battery.
How CR Tests Battery-Powered Tools
Consumer Reports tests battery power tools at our facility in Yonkers, N.Y., as well as in Florida (where there’s grass year-round). We don’t accept products for testing from manufacturers. Instead, we send out shoppers to purchase equipment in stores and pay the retail price, just as you would.
To come up with our ratings of battery platforms for power tools, we pull together data from CR’s own individual product tests and average the scores of a brand’s highest-performing tools for that platform. We include a brand’s highest-performing string trimmer, leaf blower, chainsaw, hedge trimmer, lawn mower, drill, and impact driver. Not every brand offers each of these products (we choose platforms that offer at least three), while some brands offer more than one model in each category.
For our individual product tests, we measure performance, how easy the tools are to handle, and noise at ear level Plus, we compare battery yard tools to gas models to determine whether battery tools pack the same punch. Here are more details about what the tests look like for the tools that factor into our battery platform ratings:
For string trimmers, we test how evenly a model trims high grass, yard weeds, and even dense brush. We also test how effectively it handles edges along a walkway. We look at how easy each trimmer is to hold, maneuver, and operate, noting how difficult it is to start up or feed extra line through the cutting head.
For leaf blowers, we measure how long it takes for each blower to move a large pile of leaves and how well they loosen leaves and other debris stuck or embedded in grass.
For chainsaws, we time how long it takes for each to work its way through a 10-inch-thick oak beam. We consider how well it cuts and take note of how many cuts the saws can make on a single charge. We also consider key safety features.
For hedge trimmers, we test for cutting capacity, handling, and safety. And we put these tools to the test against the huge swaths of invasive bamboo that we have at our New York campus. Testers start with small growth, about a quarter-inch in diameter, and work their way up to thicker shoots. We take note of how quickly and cleanly each tool works.
For lawn mowers, our testers and engineers work in Florida in the late winter to test new models on lawns that we specially prepare. We then put the mowers to work, cutting identical swaths of grass in every cutting mode—like bagging, mulching, and using the side discharge—to see how well models handle each task. We also assess how evenly each mower cuts.
For drills, we run them through a series of tests using a device called a dynamometer, which measures torque under different loads. We translate those readings into scores for power, speed, and run time.
For impact drivers, we use dynamometers to measure both the torque the impact driver can generate and the number of impacts per minute. To assess run time, we measure how long a single battery can power the unit under a standardized load on our dynamometer. We also run tests to see how long it takes to fully charge the battery.
For snow blowers, we make a mixture of sawdust saturated with water for test consistency because not all snow is the same. This mixture can simulate a standard snowfall or be molded into a mound that simulates a plow pile, like the ones left at the foot of a driveway. We time how fast each blower cuts through the dense mixture. We also note how far the sawdust is thrown and how clean the surface is. We didn’t include snow blowers in our battery platform ratings, but did note if a brand had one that we’ve tested.
For pressure washers, we measure how much pressure each model can produce in psi, then use the pressure washer to strip paint from plastic panels, timing how long it takes. We also measure noise and size up ease of use. We don’t include pressure washers in our battery platform ratings, but note if a brand has one we’ve tested.
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