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- Very quiet in operation
- Can collect clippings or mulch
- Impressive runtime
- Fiddly to assemble
- Some design aspects lack finesse
- Glacial charging time
There’s no shortage of battery-powered mowers around the £300 mark, and many come from household names such as Bosch, Ryobi and Stihl. Comparatively speaking, Cobra is a minnow, but the launch of the brand’s 40V MAX+ series of tools could change that.
While the 40V MAX+ range includes hedge trimmers, chainsaws and leaf blowers, the mowers are at its core. The MX4340VX reviewed here is the biggest of the regular, plastic-bodied mowers (larger metal-bodied, self-propelled and twin-battery models are available), but it’s precisely these more workaday models that will have the most appeal for owners of medium-sized gardens.
With a wide 43cm cutting deck and impressive 50-litre grass collector, the Cobra MX4340VX is impressively specced for the price. But is it among the best cordless lawn mowers out there? Read on to find out.
Cobra MX4340VX lawn mower: What do you get for the money?
The MX4340VX costs £330 at full price, and comes with its 40v 4Ah Li-ion Max+ battery included. Often, you can tell a lot about the quality and design of a product by how easy it is to assemble. There are exceptions to this rule, though: I got off on the wrong foot when attaching the upper handle and installing the Camlock handles, because it required the dexterity of an octopus, and brute force was applied to install the grass collector handle.
I’m pleased that it has those Camlocks, though, because they’re less of a faff to use compared to twist handles. I also like the pair of killswitch-like knobs that adjust the handle angle through three positions, which I found suited my 5’9” frame well while also offering some height adjustment.
With a 50l capacity, the robust-feeling grass collector is large, easy to install and, thanks to a wide neck, it’s easy to empty too. There’s a bright red indicator to see when it’s full, and the collector folds down for storage between the handles on top of the mower when it’s not in use. Unusually for a mower of this size, the MX4340VX provides options for whether you want to collect clippings or leave them to mulch. This is done by installing or removing a plastic mulch plug in the clipping chute. It’s a little fiddly to remove, though, and without anywhere to store it in the mower, it risks being lost in the depths of the tool shed.
The polymer plastic body feels tough and, at 15.5kg (excluding the battery), it’s light enough to carry from shed to lawn. The handle on top of the body, allied with a good weight distribution, makes it easy to carry. And like the (smaller) Ryobi RY18LMX33A, this folds back on itself. With a folded height of 30cm, it should be short enough to store under your workbench, which is particularly handy because it won’t stand upright.
The controls are simple: there’s a lock button on the right-hand side of the handle and a red-painted trigger bar to start and stop operation. The visible linkage that connects the two looks a little cheap though; most of its rivals hide this.
Much better is the height adjustment, which is operated using a hidden handle on the left of the body. The five heights, which range from 2.5 to 7.5cm, are displayed beside the left-front wheel. It works very well in operation but I struggled to get it into its highest setting one-handed, because I needed to hold the mower down with one hand as I lifted to lock it in place. But while this is noteworthy, it’s not a big problem.
The Cobra MX4340VX’s battery is a 40V 4Ah lithium-ion unit, and the kit includes a standard charger. Frustratingly, Cobra doesn’t quote a figure for coverage on a single charge, describing it only as “ideal for medium sized lawns,” although several retailers say it should be good for 250m² – less than that promised by the Stihl RMA 235. Still, there are a series of LEDs on the battery which show the level of charge, although they can’t be seen when the mower is operating. Cobra doesn’t provide a charging time or a runtime either, but read on to the next section of my review to see how it fared in our battery tests.
How well does it mow?
The Cobra MX4340VX mows very nicely indeed. During our tests, it navigated reasonably severe undulations very well, even when wound down to its lowest setting, with no clumping or hacking. And although there’s only one speed, it dealt with some longer clumps of grass and fallen leaves without breaking a sweat – although the rather stern instructions warn against tackling heavy brush, vegetation or weeds.
It delivered fine clippings into the 50-litre grass collector and the at-capacity indicator works well, even if it could be a little clearer to see at a glance: it only hinges open by a small amount.
I also mowed with the mulching plug in place. It’s pretty effective, although I did find that the plugged outlet would clog, leaving me with a pile of mulch as I carried it down the garden path to the shed. The rest of the mulch was spread evenly across the lawn. My biggest grievance with the mulch plug is that the design of the catch is rather fiddly to release.
The exposed front wheels make it a cinch to follow your tramlines, and the design of the bodywork around that wide cutting deck means stray grass is combed into it, making it good at trimming close to fences and raised beds. It’s pretty manoeuvrable, too.
The Cobra’s long grass collector does mean it’s hard to back the mower into tight spaces, so I had to mow into these spots, rather than mow away from them. That can be a problem if you like to start in a particular corner of your lawn such as, in my case, close to the wall of my house. And I found the handle doesn’t quite stretch far enough to avoid me kicking the collector as I walked the mower along.
There’s very little vibration through the handle, though, and I recorded just 1.5mm/s, which puts it way under the government’s recommended limits. It’s similarly light on the ears too: Cobra quotes 93dBA, but I recorded just 75dBA at ear level.
Aside from the handle, which could be a touch longer, the only ergonomic foible is that the unlock button feels a bit too far from the trigger. Moving it a few centimetres towards the latter would make it just that little bit easier to use.
There are no such problems with the runtime, though. I mowed well over 100m², and the battery was still illuminating all four of its LEDs. In our no-load runtime test (carried out non-stop at around 5°C), the battery lasted for 65 minutes before expiring. Only the mega-money EGO LM2236E-SP beat this. This is just as well, because charging is much slower. It took nearly five hours to charge it from flat to full using the standard charger: the slowest charging time we’ve seen on a mower.
This is frustrating, because I would’ve thought Cobra would be keen to demonstrate the abilities of its new battery ecosystem, especially as MAX+ tools can’t be used with the firm’s older batteries, and vice-versa.
Should I buy the Cobra MX4340VX lawn mower?
The Cobra MX4340VX might not sport household-name branding, but its abilities are deeply impressive. If you have a small-to-medium sized garden, it has huge appeal.
I’d like a little more finesse to the finer touches (that exposed cable linkage, for instance), the ability to stand it upright, and for the standard charger to do its thing a little more quickly. But when it comes to fulfilling the dictionary definition of a mower, the MX4340VX is an excellent performer.
It’s time now for Cobra to be more bullish about its runtime and the amount of grass it can mow on a single charge, because it has a mighty fine product on its hands.
