Ryobi electric lawn mower – A review by an adult in training

I was mowing my lawn (and weeds) yesterday, and I had the thought “I should review my lawn mower”. This is when you know that childhood is officially in your rearview mirror, but here we are. So often I find when I’m looking for a review especially for something for my home,I can’t find someone I relate to reviewing the thing I’m looking for. So I decided to give in to my inner adult and tell you my 30 something year old, adult in training opinion of my Ryobi electric lawn mower. Side note this not a sponsored post. Ryobi isn’t going to sponsor me when only my Dad reads my blog (hi Dad!). So you know this is my honest to God, truthful opinion.

When I was a teenager I used to mow my parents lawn pretty regularly. I loved it too. They had a pretty large lawn. I loved nothing more than popping on my pink iPod nano (RIP) and some shorts and a tank top to work on my tan and mowing the lawn, then jumping in the pool afterward . There is nothing better in the world than getting all sweaty mowing the lawn and then jumping straight into the pool, but I digress. My parents always had a gas lawnmower so I’ve known nothing else. It did not even cross my mind that there were electric mowers out there.

When I finally removed all of the rocks from the yard of my new home and and had some patches of grass growing (see Shaw showing off said grass patches above) I started looking into buying a lawn mower. I did a little reasearch of my own and looked at a few different options ,but ultimately I landed on the Ryobi electric lawn mower because my friend bought it first and liked it. That was enough endorsement for me.

Two of the main factors I thought about when I was looking at lawn mowers were Gas/Electric (once I figured out electric existed) and then if electric corded vs cordless.

Gas vs electric mower

A gas mower requires a lot more maintenance than an electric. It can run out of gas, need new spark plugs, or run out of starter fluid. Simply put there are a lot of things that can go wrong with a gas mower.

An electric mower has none of these problems. If you plug it in and it dosen’t work welp, it’s probably dead for good. Basically an electric mower is a lot lower maintenance.

Corded vs cordless

Okay so now you’ve decided you’re going electric! Now the big question is corded or cordless?! The difference in the Ryobi corded vs cordless was about $150. Also the corded you need to buy an extension cord which will run you about $30

What did I choose and what do I think of my electric mower?

In the end I chose the cheapest of the cheap the corded electric mower and I’m so happy with my decision! Usually I’m a little weary of the cheapest option, but sometime cheap isn’t bad! Sure I miss the pulling of the start cord, the engine kicking in, the sound, and the smell of gasoline, but I can get over all of that. With the Ryobi electric lawn mower it gives me everything I need for my 4,700 foot lot…most of which is not grass but house, garage, and patio. Maybe I have 1,000 square feet total to mow, honestly I’m not quite sure.

I bought a 100 foot cord off of Amazon. I also purchased this super easy to use cord winder that my Dad recommended. The lawn mower has an easy to remove bag that fills up once ever 500 feet-ish (again just an estimate). The mower has three blade heights. I always use the tallest one because that’s what my retired horticulturist neighbor told me to do, and who am I to question his expertise? I’m just a lowly apparel designer. It’s also super lightweight and compact so I can store it easily in my small shed.

There isn’t much else to say about it! I really like my electric mower and have had no problems with it in the year and a half I’ve owned it. If I had a bit larger yard I might recommend the cordless, but for a small yard you really learn quickly how to work with the cord, and come up with a pattern that works for you.