Greenworks 40V 16" Cordless (Push) Lawn Mower (75+ Compatible Tools), 4.0Ah Battery and Charger Included

This is my first electric lawnmower and I'm never going back to gas. This is such a joy to use compared to my old dependable YardMan 21" self-propelled gas mower. There is room for improvements, but overall, I'm loving this electric mower.This review is for the 21" self-propelled 40V G-Max GreenWorks mower with the Smart Pace feature.I have a 1/3 acre lot with a single-family home. Only about half the lot is grass (big house, lots of landscaping). About half my grass area is sloped.The lawnmower came with 2 of the GreenWorks G-Max 4aH batteries. These are 20-cell 18650 battery packs that charge to 41.3 V on the GreenWorks charger. This battery design is a standard nominal 36V voltage 18650 pack.These two batteries are just enough to cut my entire yard, but I've since bought another off-brand battery to make it easy to cut the yard without coming close to running out. The mower does run with a smaller 2Ah battery, but the battery tends to overheat and won't charge until it cools down. Better to stick to the 4AH sized pack for this mower.The mower can hold two batteries, but it only uses one at a time and switches to the second one when the first runs out of power. Only one battery is needed to run the mower. The mower is lighter when only one battery is installed. To extend the mowing time a bit, it's possible to do a bit of swapping and charging, while you are cutting the grass. So I would use about half the charge of one battery, then put it on the charger, and switch to my second battery. When the second battery was dead, I would then take the first off the charger which had gained extra power while I was cutting, and put the dead second one on the charger. Then I could use the second until it died, ad by then, the first one will have more charge it, and I can cut a little more with it. So playing games like that allows you to cut a bit more grass, without buying extra batteries.The charger is a 2 Amp charger, so a 4 AH battery takes about 2 hours to charge from fully dead. The 2Ah battery takes 1 hour to charge. With maybe 4 batteries and two chargers, you could rotate batteries and cut non-stop for hours. So a yard much larger than my 1/3 acre yard is very doable with this mower if you are willing to invest in the extra batteries. Or if you just cut part of the yard, recharge for a couple of hours, then cut another part.When the battery dies, you don't need to push the mower back to the garage (enough though you can easy enough). Just pull the dead battery, walk to the garage to swap with the new one, and return.The Pros:Very quiet compared to gas. Runs at about 70 dbA noise level, compared to 80 dbA of my yardman (measurement taken at the location of my head when using the mowers. My Dyson vacuum is 75 dBA inside the house. So this mower makes less noise than my vacuum. I could hear the 17-year cicadas over the sound of this mower while cutting the grass. A 6dbA difference is subjectively about twice as loud, so my gas mower is subjectively more than twice as loud as this one.Lightweight. Seems like maybe half the weight of my Yardman gas mower of the same cutting capacity. Easy to push around and store.Switch between bagging, mulching, and discharge, with no tools or nuts or bolts. The side discharge chute is spring-loaded and can just be popped open. The grass bag is just dropped in place and is held securely by a spring-loaded rear access panel. For mulching, you need to add a plastic insert about the size of a loaf of bread to fill the bag discharge port, which is one more part to lose track of, but the mower can operate without it, by allowing the grass bag rear access panel to block the grass bag chute so if you misplace the insert, the mower is still usable. Though I would assume, mulching might not work as well without the help of that insert to block grass from accumulating in the blocked chute.The self-propel feature can be turned on and off with a knob on the handle so you can use it like a push mower. Unlike gas self-propelled mowers that normally have a differential and belt drive that prevents the drive wheels from turning when self-propelled is not engaged, this eclectic motor allows the back drive wheels to turn freely. It's heavy enough that I don't like pushing it without using the self-propel turned on, but it is easy enough to push that I have no problem doing it, even up hills.The handles can be folded down, and the mower stands up vertically. With no oil or gas to spill out, you can store the mower in any position without issues. You could even store it inside a house without issues since there are no oil or gas smells or fire risks.One handle (no tool) cutting height adjustment that adjusts all 4 wheels at the same time.Easy to put together. The handle just needs to be attached with a few bolts.Never hard to start like gas mowers. Just drop in the battery and go. Easy for an older child or woman to use. You don't need bin manly strength to use this.The grass bag is just the right size so it's not heavy to lift and dump. It smaller than my YardMan 21" but yet this bag doesn't seem to fill up as fast. The hardman was heavy and hard to dump, this mower's grass bag is probably 30% lighter, and easy to dump (the grass doesn't get caught in the bag or require violent shaking to remove). My wife can dump this bag, she would not cut with my old mower because the grass bag was too big and heavy for her.The Cons:The mower has a super annoying feature that it won't let you pull it back until after you pause for about 1 second with no motion. You must wait for the drive motor to turn off before the drive wheels can turn freely. Worse, if you aren't patient and just drag the mower backward ripping up your grass, the drive won't ever disengage. You can pull it backward dragging the wheels for an hour and it won't free up the wheels, it will only disengage if the wheels at not moving. So if you don't wait long enough before you pull, you have just reset the amount of time you have to wait still. And, when you are going uphill, if you try to wait, it doesn't work because the mower will try to roll back towards you, and that causes the drive electronics to stay engaged. You have to push to keep the mower from rolling and hold it for about a second before it will disengage the wheels and allow you to pull it backward. My yardman has a one-direction ratchet built into the wheels so you can ALWAYS put it backward, even when the drive is trying to push it forward. This mower design opted not to inc lude that to keep the mower simpler with fewer parts to break (to offset the high cost of an electric motor and batteries). You must learn how to work with this annoying issue vs fight it. Pushing the mower back and forth to get under a bush becomes a big pain. Doing the same to cut a little isolated area of grass, has the same problem. Doing a Y-turn when trying to reverse direction can run into this as well. So I tend to do a wide U-turn when I need to reverse direction vs a Y turn. The other workaround is to just turn the self-propel feature off when you want to do a bunch of back-and-forth motions (which frees the wheels) then turn it back on when you are just going straight. They REALLY need to fix this. I've seen others complaining about this and I've seen the GreenWorks agent try to blame it on user error. I believe all the GreenWorks self-propelled mowers might have this same "design feature". They either need to make the drive disengage instantly, instead of having that 1 second-ish delay, or add a ratchet to the drive so you can always pull it backward.The self-paced feature of this mower is annoying on hills and when trying to maneuver. Only works well on flat ground when driving straight. The feature gives you a bar at the top of the handles to hold with both hands, and push with. The entire bar unit slides up and down about 6 inches on the handle. When you push it down, the mower speeds up and moves forward, when you pull back it slows down and stops. This allows you to walk at whatever pace you want, and the mower will set its speed to match your walking speed. There is no other speed control on the mower. When you push down to try and make the mower take off, it will accelerate slowly, so it doesn't jump away from you. This is fine when you are just starting a long straight path, but is anything when trying to stop and start quickly, like pushing it forward and back to but around a bush or other obstacle. I push too hard, and it slides down a few inches and then bottoms out causing an impact to my hands and wrists which ends up with my hands and thumbs being sore. I have to slow down and take it slower, both because of this behavior, and the problem with reversing talked about above. Give me a lever control for the speed any day. I would not buy this version of the GreenWorks mower because of this. I would buy one with the level control for the speed. But I have never tried the lever control so I don't know for sure I would like it better. This should be fine if you have a mostly flat, and mostly open yard design with few obstacles or bushes to cut under, but with a sloped yard and obstacle to cut around that forces you to have to stop and start constantly, this feature is annoying.This is a consumer-level disposable product. The company doesn't sell replacement parts, so if you damage your mower, you can't fix it. It's designed to be thrown away and replaced if something happens to it. It's well made, strong, but just not designed to be serviced and repaired. Don't try to cut a steel pipe, or hit it with your car, for example.The front wheels are fixed direction. They don't caster like my Yardman does, which means you must push down on the handle to reduce weight from the front wheels to turn. But because the mower is light this is not a big issue. And because the front wheels don't turn, they were able to implement the one-handle height adjustment. I have to remove bolts and remove and reinstall the wheels on my YardMan to change the height which is a real pain.Price. These electric mowers cost more than the gas mowers of the same features. This $500+ mower and battery combination has the feature set of a $300 dollar gas mower. But you can use the expensive batteries on other tools from the G-Max 40V family and share costs that way.ConclusionsI have 5 Greenworks 40V G-Max tools and love them all. I expect to get more. The extra cost is worth it to me to get away from dealing with hard-to-start, noisy, polluting, gas-powered tools. I'm never going to buy another gas-powered yard tool. The time for electric yard tools has arrived. This mower and the GreenWorks tools, in general, I'm super happy with. They are consumer-level products, that are made to be lightweight and easy to use by women or young adults and don't require the strength of the larger gas mowers to operate. The lightweight and ease of use make them safer for someone without a lot of strength to operate.A big win for me is the low noise, which means I can cut grass early in the morning, or late at night without worrying about bothering the neighbors. The quality of the cut is identical to my past gas mowers, and so far, I've not had any issues with power with high grass. I've not tried to cut wet grass.Though I'm seeing things I'd like them to address in their future designs, as talked about above, it's still a big net-win for me.

Cuts in more ways & Fits the BillMy Greenworks 40 Volt Self-Propelled 21" mower was purchased with 2 - 4Ah Batteries + charger from Amazon as an Earth Day Special 4/22/2021. The shipping weight of the unit was 82 Lbs, packed well/secure and received new the next day.Batteries were at 1 LED when indicator level was depressed. Assembly was quick and straight forward. The build felt solid and heavy duty for me -- having upgraded from a substantially lighter corded plastic 13 amp 16" push mower. The decking of the Greenworks is steel, along with the welded wheel frame, single levered height adjustment, grass catcher basket and hardware. All four wheel spindles are encased with steel ball bearing races. This machine is robust and sturdy. My long wait is over, yes, I've graduated to cordless mowing!After 4 mowing sessions in the couple of weeks of my roughly 102' x 48' NE back lawn consisting of mainly dense established fescue, I am very satisfied. Here's are the pro's:1) The cutting power and torque of this brushless mower powered through my well-watered spring growth, impressively. There were no bog downs, unlike my underpowered corded mower past, which caused me to pop "Wheelies" over the dense high spots of the lawn. I had to go over the thick growth, with the old mower, at least a couple of times or mow at a higher setting first and then drop down a notch to make a second pass, or more. The Greenworks hums through and ramps up when needed but it is still much quieter than my old machine.I opted not to use the rear wheeled self-propulsion which was too slow for my taste (my goal is to mow the back lawn cordlessly in 35 minutes or less) maximize cutting /+battery economy and push the hefty steel unit hard and fast to get a good aerobic workout, as well. No fumes, oily mess and extension cords to worry about running over!2) Battery life is as expected. I can cut about 65-70% of the backyard on one 4aH battery with 1" - 2" of growth with a fully charged battery at around 41.2 Volts according to my meter. This is as expected. I will probably just mow half my back yard in the future, empty the grass catcher then alternate batteries to prolong overall battery longevity and prevent life-shortening battery overheating and overdischarging. I always mow near sunset to help keep the batteries cool.As a routine, wearing leather gloves, I sharpened the blades with a fine flat file for 1-2 minutes between each of the three mowing episodes to assure cutting efficiency on that chosen day. The fourth cut was done after a rainy day without the usual sharpening and the last 25% was done in a light, but steady rain.3) The center-mounted grass catcher fills very well. I never used the side discharge plastics. I am very pleased that the cut clippings end up in the bag and not strewn across the lawn. My third session averaged about 14-18 Lbs of moist clippings around five bagfulls, close to a hundred Lbs. The blade rotation and angle design is very good, forcefully blowing the cut lawn clipping into attached the mesh grass catcher. Emptying is fast and easy.During the rainy day cut, I was duly impressed. The machine handled the abuse and cut admirably. My bag fills were heavy, full of wet clippings, probably double the normal weight of the bagfulls accumulated during my other 3 sessions. I would never mow like this with my corded unit (electrocution hazard). I alternated the batteries every one or two bagfuls to keep them cool and charging since the system had revvvved-up significantly due to the resistance of the stickier wet grass. The bag was surprisingly filling to the full and the trails of grass left in my lanes were amazingly minimal. For all 4 mowing sessions since my purchase, the cut height was set at the "3" level.4) Black plastic handled spring mounted pull clips with steel pins make storing the mower vertically convenient, as well as, giving sturdy access to sharpen and clean as needed. (The three position handle adjustment plate has a fourth set of holes in it that transforms this steel bracket into the mower's vertical kickstand. Pre and post maintence is a snap for me, because of this feature.5) The self-propulsion can be initiated without the blade spinning. After being winded from a good pushing series of laps up and down my slightly graded yard , I was pleasantly surprised to find that the rear-wheeled drive works when I turned the center gray circular knob to the "Unlocked" position and welcomed the assistance at the end of my mowing workout.6) What incredible foresight and consideration on behalf of the designers and engineers of Greenworks, that each of the 4Ah batteries come with a 5-volt USB charging port! Being Green works...I have paid extra for this feature for an attachable device that's connected onto a competitor's batteries in the past.The self-closing USB slot provides a dustless connect for owners to charge their devices. I've been storing my mower batteries at their happy place at either two or sometimes three bars and getting double duty from my mowing investment by charging my portable electronics at home. I have now cut off the AC power to my DC chargers since the batteries have juice to spare and provide worry-free clean power that is essentially free from potential device damaging storm/transformer failure induced spikes and surges and now I just burn the Kwh's I will actually use for the small electronics. No more wasted Kwh's idling.I just top off my Greenworks batteries when needed to prevent overdischarges and keep them at the preferred best storage voltage of around 2 LEDs to assure a long productive life. I charge them to 4 bars at 41.2 Volts right before I mow. I've discovered that according to my meter a starting voltage at 3 bars must be less than 40.3 volts to initiate a top off charge.Here are my cons:a) Batteries when heavily used will overheat. Alternating batteries if possible and allowing for cooling time between heavy use, I believe from my research will prolong the batteries overall longevity. https://www.protoolreviews.com/lithium-ion-battery-maintenance-tips/b) Batteries tend to get hot when charging. Interval charging is what I've found useful and have programmed a timer to "baby" my batteries to coax the highest level of productivity from them.I like the mower and have anticipated hotter working conditions and purchased a set of Greenworks Bluetooth mobile device (iOS & Android) connectible 3Ah batteries to meet my mowing needs. For my future mowings I have the option to wirelessly monitor power reserve levels and temperatures. I will be rotating my batteries frequently between bag changes to get the most life and capacity from my mowing investments.c) Charger can time out when overheated and must be given time to cool. I've found that once cool, the charger should be unplugged for 10-15 seconds to clear the protection circuit. Now, I can begin charging, as long as, the battery is cool and within the recommended charging range.d) Self-propelled mowing may be out for user's that have larger areas to cut.The pace maybe simply too slow for many like me, whose territory and priority is to cut and bag, as much as possible, quickly. Mowing efficiently and promoting the longevity of the equipment is my key priority. I want the batteries and mower to last for many, many seasons and cutting the most square footage per charge while getting a good cardio workout.Users with smaller properties to cut or hilly terrain or perhaps folks who are physically not inclined to be pushing and pulling a mower in the near 65-100+ Lbs range (side discharge only- full grass catcher plus two batteries), the slower pace, in all fairness, is not necessarily a "Con."The cut and control are good for this unit. The self-propulsion is smooth enough but when reversing, "pull gradually." A hard pull in reverse on the handle will be tough on your wrists since hard plastic yoke control slides and can "slam" against the steel handle assembly. If yanked abruptly, however, if you anticipate your reversing... and reverse gradually and purposely---the rear-wheeled drive system will work along with your course direction. It's kind of like dancing with a good partner but can be feisty and hesitates in reverse if you want to move faster with back and forth pivots and pull backs in tighter areas.Summary:This unit is a vast improvement from my corded experience. It is a well-built and powerful machine that cuts and bags well. It has saved me time keeps me in shape, lowers my electric bill, preserves my personal electronics and is built to last.The batteries and charging system can do the job that I am asking them to do. But I must manage them and have bolstered them.The limitations of the batteries and charger are evident for my needs and my environment but worth the effort and the price I paid along with the consideration and extra set of batteries I've already added to prolong the investment.It has surpassed my expectations and has given me more benefit despite the extra burden of taking little breaks swapping batteries and dumping clippings. I need the rest anyway and my mowing sessions are more like a "Tabata-Styled" interval workout.For those who live in hotter, drier environments with heavy or very hilly or large areas to cut, this unit may not be as workable or care-free as you would want and may be a pass, but for me it works. This system keeps me, my electric bill and my yard "Fit and Trim."