He lives in a very demanding 250-year-old farmhouse and spent four years gutting and rebuilding his previous home. The combination of the back and forth movement—which creates a natural alignment with the breath—and the quiet swishing of the grass encourages a thoughtful and contemplative mindset. For finer work, the ST1511T has two speeds and a variable-speed trigger.
Down at the trimmer head, the debris guard protects your feet and lower legs from flying grass, weed stalks, pebbles, and whatever else the trimmer may lift and hurl back at you. We strongly favor larger guards, which offer the most protection and make only a minor sacrifice in maneuverability. Many trimmers, typically those designed with the pro user in mind, have narrow guards, which add to the maneuverability of the trimmer but left us with grass-covered legs in our tests. We’ve been covering outdoor power equipment since 2013, with guides to lawn mowers, snow blowers, pressure washers, and leaf blowers.
At the time, the next-best trimmer cut about only 2,100 square feet, almost 40% less; the other models in our test group cut 1,600 square feet at most, or less than 50% of what that Ego trimmer accomplished. Putting that performance in perspective, that earlier version was capable of costway lounge chair trimming, on a single battery charge, a 1-foot-wide swath of grass that was two-thirds of a mile long. The Ego ST1511T Power+ 15″ Powerload String Trimmer combines raw cutting power, finesse, handling, ergonomics, convenience, cost, and run time in a way no other string trimmers do.
Compared with both pricier and cheaper trees, National Tree Company’s 7.5-foot Feel Real Downswept Douglas Fir strikes a good balance of cost, realism, and ease of setup. With nearly 2,000 lifelike polyethylene branch tips, surrounding a core clad with less-realistic PVC “pine needles,” this tree has a construction similar to that of other high-quality artificial trees. Yet with a higher-than-average proportion of those lifelike branches, the Downswept Douglas Fir creates a more convincing illusion of a living fir. The 750 built-in LED bulbs fill its branches nicely, and the lights can switch from all white to multicolor to a mix of the two, giving the tree an uncommon versatility. At 7½ feet high and almost 5 feet across, the tree is generously proportioned; it will fill the corner of almost any living room.
At just 32 inches, this tree is barely half as wide as the 59-inch Downswept Douglas Fir. So it doesn’t look like any pine you can find in nature; it’s more like a cypress. But that also means it can fit in spaces where a full-width tree can’t. A few models were outliers, however, and one slightly exceeded the federal limits. One is direct contact with the branches, as may occur when people are setting up the trees and decorating them.
I can also do the cutting in the early morning, whereas I would never dare take out a string trimmer at that time of day. Not everyone needs a full-size string trimmer, so we also considered a number of smaller, lighter models. Sacrificing power for ergonomics, these string trimmers are a better fit for people who may have movement limitations or anyone who has a small lawn and minimal trimming needs. With all the costway patio furniture whipping and cutting a trimmer does, it’s not surprising that the string breaks at a fairly quick rate. Loading new line into the trimmer head has long been the most frustrating part of owning a string trimmer, but newer models solve this problem with either automatic systems or very simple manual designs. If the Ego ST1511T is not available, we also like the Ego ST1521S Power+ 15″ String Trimmer with Powerload.
A light tester can help you find the problem bulb without having to remove and replace each one. Should an entire string go dark, it likely means that a fuse in the plug has burned out, and all of the National Tree Company picks in our guide come with replacements for those, as well. If all of these options fail, customer support is on hand to help (though we’ve found it becomes extremely difficult to get through to a live agent as the holidays get closer).