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- Huge torque delivery
- Tackles slopes with ease
- Most powerful batteries in the business
- Extremely expensive
- Loud
- Too heavy to cart around
Need the oomph of a petrol-powered mower, but don’t like the noise, fumes or need for maintenance? Enter the Ego LM2236E-SP.
First things first: it’s a whopper. The unit weighs in at 31.2kg, but if you have large lawns to mow, it may well be the perfect answer. Indeed, it’s able to cover a vast 2,000m2 patch in a single session, collecting up to 80 litres of clippings on the way. It’s no lightweight when it comes to cutting length, either, because the deck rises and lowers between 25 to 100mm.
That’s not the only thing that’s heavyweight. The kit – complete with mower, battery and charger – comes in at a considerable £1,199. While it edges some of the more punchy self-propelled petrol-powered lawn mowers, such as the Hayter Harrier 41 Autodrive VS 375A, on specs, you’ll need a solid use case and the desire to justify the cleaner and maintenance-free Ego.
But assuming you meet these prerequisites, is the Ego LM2236E-SP the big-capacity battery mower to have? In this review, we’ll find out.
Ego LM2236E-SP: What do you get for the money?
We’ll need to take a deep breath here, because there’s a lot. Firstly the battery, which is the heart of the show. Measuring 195 x 157 x 109mm and weighing a chunky 3.2kg, it’s the biggest mower battery available. Its 10Ah, 56-volt output eclipses everything else, so it’s no small wonder it can power the Ego to cut 2,000m2 – around half an acre – on a single charge. Should you need to replace the battery, be aware that this will cost you almost half the cost of the mower itself, at £469.
It’s not just big. It’s clever, too, with a casing designed to dissipate heat, and tech that means you’ll get the full 56-volts right up until the charge fully expires.
The rapid charger is equally worthy of note, because – predictably – it’s also a monster. It’ll take an hour to fully charge the 10Ah battery, and shows clear lights when it’s doing so. It can also be wall-mounted to keep it out of the way in your shed.
The mower itself has a slightly unusual blade setup, in that there are four cutting surfaces, with each pair offset by around 20 degrees and measuring a total of 543mm. The result, as we’ll see, is a very fine mulch and a wide cut. The cutting deck rises through seven increments between 25mm and 100mm, an operation that’s performed using a reassuringly hefty lever on the side of the mower.
The height adjustment lever is mirrored on the other side by a similar protuberance which allows you to choose whether you want all clippings fired into the 80-litre collection box, everything spat out for mulching, or somewhere in between. It’s a nice feature that means you’ll not have to choose between too much mulch or an overflowing compost heap.
The mower is self-propelled through variable speeds, which is useful, because the whole thing weighs more than 31kg. Fortunately, it’s still pretty wieldy, and the large wheels ride bumps well.
The aluminium telescopic handles have a single length setting and three height settings, and the mower won’t start until it’s set in place. There’s a proper control panel, too, which allows you to cycle through eco, normal or fast cutting speeds and operate the headlights (yes, really). There’s also a power lock switch, which must be pressed before pulling the trigger bar, a pair of buttons to operate the self-propelling function, and a twist control to vary the speed.
It’s a shame there’s no kill switch for when you need to dig around to clear debris from around the blades, but the battery slides in and out easily enough. This is protected from the elements by a translucent cover which allows you to view its charge level lights. The cover is particularly significant, because the Ego can be used in the rain.
How well does it mow?
In a word, the Ego LM2236E-SP mows brilliantly – once you’ve got over how heavy it is. Its weight becomes the most burdensome when you need to pick it up and carry it from your shed and, if you have to do this routinely, then it may not be the mower for you. However, if space is at a premium, you’ll be pleased to know it will stand upright. And if you have a large enough lawn to warrant a mower of this ability, the chances are you’ll have something larger than a potting shed to store it.
I tested the mower on a long 300m2 garden, and found it effortless. The self-propelling speeds vary from a slow trot to a brisk walk and, as ever, these take so much of the effort out of mowing. It ate up long runs of grass with ease, and gentle undulations proved to be no issue at all. It cuts cleanly and consistently.
At the heady 95dB I measured, it’s not far off a petrol-powered mower in terms of noise. Vibration is low through the handle, at 2.5m/s², at well below the government’s recommended limits. It measures 6.5m/s² through the metal trigger. At that rate, it’ll take one hour, 11 minutes to rise above the exposure action value (2.5m/s² for eight hours), and four hours 44 minutes to break the exposure limit value (5m/s² for eight hours).
Hand-arm vibration (or HAV) occurs when operating vibrating tools with your hands. This includes drills, steering wheels, chainsaws and lawn mowers. As an occupational hazard, the government has set limits on vibration exposure in order to prevent the development of conditions such as hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) and white finger.
The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005 sets the exposure action value (the level at which employers should “introduce technical and organisational measures to reduce exposure”) at 2.5 m/s² A(8). That A8 refers to exposure over eight hours. On the other hand (pun not intended), the exposure limit value, the upper limit that should not be exceeded, is 5m/s² A(8).
There are two things I noted during my testing. Firstly, dragging it back and forth around kids’ playthings and immovable pots required a fair bit of wrestling, especially where gaps were tight and precision was required. I found it easy to accidentally hit one of the twin handle-mounted buttons which operate the self-propelling modes. Similarly, it took a while before muscle memory kicked in to instinctively drive the mower or activate the blades separately. I found this became easier with practice.
The huge 14.37Nm of torque meant that even when mowing some errant brambles, I didn’t need to lean on the mower’s faster mode, and the battery capacity was more than enough to avoid resorting to the eco mode. Indeed, after that 300m2 mow, the battery indicator still showed four out of five lights.
The wide cutting deck meant fewer runs up and down were required than with more compact mowers, and the huge 80-litre grass collector box took an age to fill – particularly as the blades finely sliced the cuttings. But you’ll need to be on top of your game, because there’s no box-full indicator, and no obvious way of checking unless you remove the hopper.
Still, I like that it allows you to box the clippings, mulch them, or a combination of the two.
And I also like that you can operate the Ego in the rain – or at night, when the twin LED headlights do a decent job of illuminating the grass ahead.
Should I buy the Ego LM2236E-SP lawn mower?
There’s no doubting the EGO LM2236E-SP’s abilities, and it’s a genuine alternative to a big petrol mower. If you have a large lawn (we’re talking half an acre here) – not to mention a large budget – and want something that you can get out, plug in and cut up, then the Ego is a huge draw. Particularly so if you can’t bear the occasional faff of something fuelled by unleaded.
I suspect, though, that its true calling will be with eco-conscious gardeners who would prefer not their petunias clouded in petrol fumes. It’s just a shame that it’s not as gentle on the ears as it is on the environment.
