Ozito PXC 36V 410mm Brushless Lawn Mower Kit

SUMMARY: Pros: - very light - handle to easily carry it (I have a few stairs, this comes in handy) - easy to push and move around - way quieter than a petrol mower - impressively strong even on long grass - no pulling cords, no buying and filling petrol, no spark plugs, no filling in oil, no air filter, no petrol filter, no carburettor - no maintenance

- low running costs

- 5 year warranty

- one charge can do 500 m2 of lawn (as per specs).

Cons:

- cheap plastic feel

- not sure what the benefit of that "safety key" is.

- louder than I thought it would be (still way quieter than petrol)

- Grass catcher rather small

- When putting the catcher on, the power cable in in the way on the right hand side

In short: Impressively handles my small (say 300 m2 grass area) with ease and plenty of juice left in the batteries. Even when the grass had grown high.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you cannot find this model on the Bunnings Website, don't worry, neither can I. had set my mind on the PXLMK-3182 ($329) based on the Bunnings reviews. Then while picking it up I saw this model in the store for $269 (bundle with two 4 Ah batteries). Specs seemed comparable - so I bought this one. Two weeks earlier I had managed to half finish my rather small lawn area when I ran out of petrol. Filled the tank - and for the life of me I could not start that mower again. Then my Stihl whipper snipper did not start - and that was it for me. Time to upgrade to electric.

The problem was that while reading online reviews it is close to impossible to determine, how good or bad these battery driven lawn mowers actually are. In typical internet fashion, people are either over the moon and say owning one of those is the best thing they have ever done. And then there is the flip side where people claim the mower completely ruined their lives, made them depressed, forced them to quite their jobs and now they have no choice but to contemplate what is left of their destroyed existence.

Maybe my review will help.

So I unpack this mower and the first thing that I notice is that it reminds me of a Fisher Price toy. It is all plastic, it is all bendy and - there goes the advantage, really light. Things clip together easily and within a few minutes of opening the box, it is standing right in front of me. Overall, I must say I quite like to looks of it, not that aesthetics it an important part of a lawn mower.

I charge the batteries and place them into the front of the mover. I also had to insert the "Security Key" into the battery compartment and am advised by the manual to never leave the security key or the batteries in the mower when it is not in use. The batteries I can sort of understand, but removing that little key that is a little bigger than a match box sounds like a terrible idea. You are asking for it to get lost somewhere in the garden shed and as soon as they key is lost, you are no longer mowing the lawn. Then what happens? I am not sure about you guys, but I would not run to bunnings to get one, I would try and quickly build my own with a bent coat hanger ... and the whole safety key now just turned into a rather serious safety risk.

Once I turned it on (press red button and pull up the safety handle), my comparison to Fisher Price toys immediately was overwritten. This sounds like power, like torque and it sounds way louder than I expected (still, quiet in comparison to my petrol mower though). I drive over the few square metres in my front yard (grass was a bit overgrown but nothing out of the ordinary) and this mower would not flinch. There were a lot of leaves and twigs and fallen off flowers in that area and the mower handled it all impressively. But I noticed that the 50 litre catcher filled up very quickly and needed emptying.

Then I took it outside to the green strip between the footpath and the road and it did a brilliant job. Those two together were about 120 m2, roughly. I emptied the catcher three times for that.

Now to the real challenge, the back yard. I told you that I had run out of petrol so there was this centre piece left that now had seriously high grass since it had taken me a few weeks to research and also to wait for dry weather. I decided to take a video of how it performed, so you can see for your self. It turned out to be a bit out of focus, but you will see how the mower performed in seriously high grass. It was the kind of grass that my petrol mower would have definitely struggled with.

To be completely open, you will see that the grass although rather high was not dense (my landscaping and gardening skills are rather average).

In total I mowed around 350 to 400 m2 that day. Once done I took the batteries out and put them into my (also brand new) Ozito Whipper snipper and I did the front and backyard.

Once done, there were still 2 of the 3 LED light on for the battery charge. Now, that does not mean that 2/3 of the charge was left, not at all, but what it means that I was not about to run out of charge by the time I was done.

Running costs? Not that much of a factor, but if you run this mower for 1 hour and if my math is correct, you will pay around 7 to 10 cents in electricity. The cost of running my petrol lawn mower is hard to estimate, but if it uses say a litre per hr you are in for $2.00 or more per hour PLUS, and that is the kicker, all the time to maintain it or cost to have it maintained.

I am super happy so far and will be back with updates if needed. Hopefully this review will help you decide.