EGO LM2122E-SP cordless lawnmower Review

What is the EGO LM2122E-SP?

One of the largest battery cordless mowers on the market, EGO’s LM2122E-SP is a 52cm wide cut, self-propelled mower designed to mow the largest lawns in the quickest time. The 56-volt system promises serious cutting power, while the 7.5Ah battery is good for 50 minutes’ mowing and can recharge in about an hour.

The EGO LM2122E-SP is a true beast of a cordless mower, neatly trimming down over 1000m² of lawn on a single charge. Build and cut quality are excellent and our only gripes are the finicky speed controller and old-fashioned grass bag. At around £700 all-in, the big EGO offers spectacular cordless value for those with larger lawns.

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EGO LM2122E-SP – Design and Features?

You might not have heard of EGO. We certainly hadn’t, but the brand’s parent company Chervon has been producing power tools since 1993 and encompasses well-known brands to tradesmen including Skil (famed for the Skilsaw). EGO launched in Europe in 2015, exclusively producing cordless powertools. The company now produces over 10m units per year that sell in 65 countries, so we thought we’d better investigate… and we are very glad we did!

The EGO LM2122E-SP is the brand’s flagship cordless mower and it is an absolute beast. This model is aimed squarely at replacing a larger petrol mower, boasting a huge 52cm wide cut, self-propelled drive with variable speed control and tremendous cutting power from its 56-volt motor. That requires an equally potent battery. The 7.5Ah unit supplied is nearly 3kg on its own, looks like a Star Wars spaceship and has a whopping 420Wh of power. That is slated to give the LM2122E-SP a run time of up to 50 minutes. Given the very wide cut, that is going to cover a whole lot of lawn.

This model also comes supplied with EGO’s flagship fast charger dock, the fabulously titled ‘Infinity Charger’. This promises to recycle even the monster 7.5Ah battery in about an hour and will charge up EGO’s smaller compatible batteries, supplied with other tools, in even less time.

As the mower, battery and charger package retails for just over £700 and is backed by a five-year guarantee on the tool and a class-leading three years on the battery, the EGO is starting to look like very impressive value for money.

The mower tipped our scales at over 30kg with the battery in place, which compares with similarly sized petrol mowers in weight, build and solidity. The wheels are tall and roll smoothly, and the fixtures and fittings feel positive and robust. The handle unfolds and locks out at one of three heights using the nicely engineered Quick Adjust Lever.

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Release the lever when you have the handle at the right height and everything locks securely into place. It is equally as slick to fold the handle back over for storage. Despite its size, the big EGO folds remarkably compact and can be stored upright to save floorspace.

The handle controls are bulky but effective. Press the big green button in the middle of the console to unlock the machine and pull the big front wire loop back to the handle to start the blade. The green drive lever is on the right side with a speed controller to the left. The speed lever is marked in 11 increments, but the reality is there are about three or four useable speeds rather than the 11 you might think. The lever is not notched, so you have to move it gently and stop at the right speed for you and the lawn conditions.

The drive lever is much easier to use; pull to go, let go to disengage the motor and the machine freewheels. If you want to drive the machine back to the shed, you can engage the drive without the blades running too.

The mower body itself spans the mile majestically and looks rather funky in its black, grey and flouro-green livery. The height adjustment level has all the panache of a sports car gear stick and is spring-loaded, which makes going higher or lower a cinch. The cutting range extends from a putting green 28mm up to a rough cut 94mm through six settings. The 13mm or so between heights is quite large but we loved the highest setting for early season cuts, seriously weedy areas and ploughing through meadow grass.

On top of the mower body, a cover flap lifts to reveal the cavernous battery slot and socket for the kill switch key. Unlike some competitors at this level, there is only one battery slot, yet given the 7.5Ah capacity of the supplied power pack, that is fair enough. The battery drops in with relative ease and, just in case you miss the huge green battery release button, it is labelled ‘PUSH CLICK’ in lettering even I could see without glasses.

Behind the battery compartment facing the user is a battery charge indicator showing green for decent charge level and red for running low. There is also a button for the rather bonkers headlights. No one mows at night (surely?), the beam doesn’t really throw enough light to do so anyway and the manual says the machine should only be used in daylight. Hmmmm. Still, they look quite funky.

The EGO has a couple of usefully placed grab handles to heft its bulk and it will stand upright on its rear end too. The underside shows off this mower’s beefy build admirably. The wheels are large and solidly mounted on heavyweight axles, the cutter deck is double-skinned ABS with honeycomb bracing and the blade is a huge 52cm scythe the grim reaper would be proud of.

The drive motor is easily accessible to the rear and the drive shafts have their own bearings independent of the wheel axles.

One very unusual addition is a heavyweight rubber flap that drags along the grass behind the mower. Labelled a ‘Trailing Shield’, we assume this is to stop debris being ejected beneath the bag and hitting your feet when you are using the very high cut setting. It didn’t affect the manoeuvrability of the mower and, if you pull the machine backwards, the shield simply flops around the other way.

The LM2122E-SP comes with a chunky mulching plug that slots into the ejector slot and a large, 70-litre, traditional mesh grass bag with wire frame and plastic skid base. The bag is a bit of a pig to assemble over the frame and looks dated compared to models with plastic bins, but it does fold down small for storage. There is no ‘bin full’ indicator though, so an occasional feel of the bag to see how full it is will be required.

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EGO LM2122E-SP – Batteries, charging and run-time?

Unlike many large, premium mowers on the market, the EGO LM2122-SP comes supplied with a battery and charger as standard. That could potentially limit your run-time choices, but given that the supplied battery is the most powerful Li-Ion pack we have ever seen and the Infinity Charger is one of the fastest we have ever used, that is something of a moot point.

The BA4200 battery supplied has the largest capacity in EGO’s cross-compatible range and will fit into any of the brand’s tools. At 3kg and the size of a couple of bricks, the 56-volt output and 7.5Ah capacity are frankly enormous. Its 420Wh rating is about the same as a small car battery. It is bristling with patent-pending tech to keep it cool and seal the workings from the elements, and it has a large, rubberised button on top. Press this and it gives you a brightly illuminated visual indicator of charge, albeit simply green for good and red or flashing red for ‘time to visit the charger’.

If you were contemplating purchasing a second BA4200 battery, that alone would set you back around £280. That is a big ask, but it is comparable, Wh for Wh, with Li-Ion batteries from other brands on the market.

The Infinity Charger is the most potent of three chargers in the EGO range, pumping out up to 8Amps of charging current. It’s a great design too, taking up very little room on the table, can be wall-mounted and has a large four-segment display to indicate the battery charge level. The upshot of all this is the ability to charge the potent 7.5Ah battery in just about an hour. Impressive stuff.

Braced and ready for big-cut mowing action, we set off across the main field with a fully charged battery. EGO claims a run time of up to 50 minutes although this will reduce in longer grass or tougher conditions. The mower cleverly detects when the blade is slowing and ups the power to compensate.

Having seen one of the driest summers on record, and recently been testing robot mowers, there wasn’t too much hard work for the EGO to do. No surprise then that the battery lasted almost all of the claimed run-time at a staggeringly good 49 minutes. That is a long time to be mowing constantly, even if the mower is self-propelled!

Going up and down in 40m long lines across the field, we covered a staggering 27m up its length. That is over 1000m² of lawn on a single charge of the battery. That is a spectacularly good result. Given I needed about an hour’s lie down after all that work, we charged the battery and carried on again later. The Ego delivered almost identical run time and coverage on the second run.

If we had enough time and shoe leather (having already walked well over 5km behind the EGO) we could arguably have charged it again and got in three cuts in an 8-hour day. That would mow some 3000m² of flat lawn or getting on for three-quarters of an acre. That is not only competing with self-propelled petrol mowers, it is stepping on the cutting decks of smaller ride-on mowers too!

EGO LM2122E-SP – Handling and Performance

The big EGO is as robust as it is bold in looks, and you can certainly see some of the brand’s commercial machinery experience. Fixtures and fittings feel professional-gardener proof and the cutter deck could easily withstand knocks doing the rounds in the back of a pick-up truck. The handle’s Quick Adjust Lever is brilliant, allowing the lever to be easily locked into one of three height positions or folded for storage in seconds. It’s a nice long handle too, giving you plenty of leverage to pop up the front wheels for tight turns.

Fired up, the motor has a potent whir slightly drowned out by the buzz of the huge blade. Engage the green drive lever and the mower moves forward smoothly. The speed controller was a bit of a challenge, though. Without any notches to indicate exact levels, you have to gently slide it back and forth to adjust speed. Doing that while moving is quite an art and there is nothing like the 11 steps of adjustment the tapered gauge markings would indicate.

There are maybe three actual speeds that you could effectively mow at. We found these to be very slow for delicate manoeuvres, just a little too slow for speedy area coverage and, with the lever pushed right down, just a little too fast to be comfortable.

Both myself and Bryan struggled with the drive speed on the open lawn, unable to find a happy medium setting between too slow or having to break into half-jog to keep up. I’m all for getting the mowing done quickly but the higher speed highlighted another minor issue. The grass bag sticks a long way out of the rear end of the mower and, if you lengthen your stride to use the mower’s higher speed setting, you will kick the back of the bag on every step. Your mileage may vary depending on your height, leg-length and speed you like to mow at, but we had trouble getting a truly comfortable mowing speed with the LM2122E-SP.

No complaints with actual mowing performance though. On low-to-mid cut height settings, it handled our short, parched lawn with consummate ease and 100 per cent grass pick up. It does not have the vacuum power to pick up heavier debris like acorns but it happily lifted and collected dry leaves. The cut was clean, and the big wheels and solid engineering meant it was easy to get straight lines.

Steps between the cutting heights are quite large. We mowed on settings 5 through to 2 with great results, although setting 1 scalped our rough meadow back down to brown stems. It is a testament to the mower’s sheer power that it felt no more resistance at this level, although pick-up struggled and the mower ejected several clumps.

There is no ‘bag full’ indicator, so you do have to keep an eye on the bag. We tend to stick a foot under the bag and lift it a little. If there is flex in the cloth mesh we carry on, and if the whole bag feels solid it is time to empty. That all feels rather old school and clunky compared to some of the plastic bin collectors we have tried, but it is effective if not elegant. The same can be said of emptying the bag. It pulls off fine and you simply empty it through the open end, but it could have done with a handle sewn into the rear mesh to help hold the bin and jiggle out the grass.

Set to height level 3 to tackle the main lawn, the LM2212E-SP produced a great cut finish in super-quick time. That 52cm-wide blade feels like you are cutting a proper swathe with each line and it is possible to do almost a metre width in just two lines. In reality, leaving a bit more of an overlap by running the front wheel in the outer track mark of the previous run, we were easily getting about two metres of cut-width in five lines. Forty-nine minutes and 2700m of walking later, the battery called time having cut over 1000m².

Heading off-piste into the bramble and weed-strewn borders between the lawn and woodlands, the EGO felt in its element. It ploughed into the undergrowth without slowing and the motor power audibly ramped up to cope. This mower is not fazed by an overgrown meadow or garden grass long enough to lose a tribe of pygmies in.

Should I buy EGO LM2122E-SP?

For cutting big lawns in the quickest time, the EGO LM2122E-SP blends a super-wide cut with a powerful motor and huge capacity battery. One charge will give you almost 50 minutes of run-time, cutting a class-leading 1000m² of lawn. The potent charger will have you back out mowing around an hour later!

Build quality is solid although the rather long, old-school mesh grass bag without ‘bag full’ indicator lets the high-tech side down a bit. The same is true of the drive-speed controller, which is finicky to use, and we struggled to find a comfortable speed. Yet given the EGO’s appealing price, coming in well below other wide-cut premium brand mowers configured with batteries and fast charger to handle such a big lawn, you can easily live with these little foibles.

Verdict

A superb value, high-speed cordless mower for large lawns, with high capacity battery and fast charger as standard.