Love the cordless B&D Grass Hog
I love this thing. I have an average size yard (8600 sq ft including my house) and I trim all around the foundation, all around my fenced backyard, both sides of the driveway, and the street curb every time I mow (well, almost every time). This trimmer never runs down before I'm finished. I always swap out the used battery for the freshly charged one before I start (it comes with 2 batteries that are interchangeable with all B&D 18V cordless tools). I do know that after a couple of years of regular use these batteries will begin to not hold a charge, then it's time to buy new ones. But the ease of use is great, and putting in a new roll of trimmer line is so easy, so it's worth it to me. I'm spoiled. Never again will I settle for an electric trimmer and screw around with the stupid extension cord, and never again will I deal with the aggravation of starting a gas trimmer. Cordless all the way for me, baby!!! I have the cordless leaf blower, too, and love it.

Still looking
This worked okay the first year, for light duty. It charged out after about 45 minutes. The second year sometimes it would give the same charge(always charging up overnight),and sometimes it would give less. This year it did not charge at all, no matter how long I let it. Felt this was rather expensive if it truly is kaput. I have yet to find a reliable trimmer and I have tried corded, gas, and now this one. Maybe it's just me.

good, but there are trade offs compared to a gas powered trimmer
I bought this item to replace an old, but reliable gas powered trimmer that finally broke. Since I am trying to go all cordless and gas free I bought this model. I have other firestorm tools that take the same battery so this was a good buy for me. If I didn't have anything else that uses the same batteries, I may not have bought it. If you have plenty of batteries and do your yard work only when fully charged, it's not bad. As a point of reference, I do a three-quarter acre yard with about twenty trees and bushes, about seventy feet of edging along a drive way, and about fifty feet on both sides of a chain link fence. It takes me two to three fully charged batteries to do that. It comes with two batteries, so if you have as much or more yard than I described, you may want to buy an additional battery if you don't already own other firestorm tools.

Pros:

-It is light weight and easy to use for those of us with bad backs.
-The twist to edge is well designed and easy to work.
-No mixing oil and gas so you don't have to worry about running out of gas in the middle of your yard work.
-No fighting with starting a two stroke motor and having to goose the trigger to keep it running. Just pull the trigger and go.
-Quiet, no noisy two stroke motor.

Cons:
-Weak compared to a gas powered trimmer. It's fine for regular yard trimming but you trade off being able to cut heavy brush or an overgrown ditch. It might cut fairly thick weeds and grass if the brush doesn't have woody stalks and if you have plenty of fresh batteries.
-It is no good unless the batteries are completely charged. Unlike a cordless screwdriver or a flashlight that are still usable until the batteries are almost dead, once the batteries are about half drained, it doesn't have the speed or torque to cut anything.
-I've found using a different type of string makes a world of difference with string trimmers. Unfortunately, this model only takes only a prestrung black and decker spool.

pain in the a**
the product itself works decently for the 10 minutes that it lasts. the result can be neater but it does cut the grass- most of it anyway. However, even with my small yard, it took me exactly 2 weeeks to complete. A reviewer wondered why the manufacturer gave no indication of the length of time it takes to fully charge the battery. there's a reason for that dear reviewer, they are afraid no one will buy the product if u knew it takes about 18 hours for maximum charge, after which, u only get ten minutes of power. Exactly 10 and no more. Therefore i had to use the trimmer every morning, then charge it all day and night so that it would be available for my 10 minutes next morning. As you can imagine, that's really a large pain in the butt! I bought the product despite warnings from some of the reviewers because i have a small yard (2000 sq. ft) but trust me, do not buy it, its not worth the stress.

something should really be done about the battery, it should last about an hour each because left as is, it makes the product itself useless. i think buyers are really misled. even some of the reviews i have to wonder about, because i can't imagine people saying they got 1 hour or even 20 minutes of power. i have been timing myself for 2 weeks and i get exactly 10 minutes.

Very Nice for a Small Yard
This Trimmer is perfect for a small yard. Nice to not have to have a cord and gas cans oil etc. The battery snaps right into place and you have two of them so you never run out of power.
I highly recommend this Black and Decker Trimmer.

Very small and light, but doesn't run smoothly
I'm having trouble with it running smoothly, not much luck getting answers for the seller

A good little generator for the money
If your power needs are minimal, this unit may fit the bill. If you need to power something with a motor, you'll probably want to keep looking, as at only 800 Watts peak, starting anything but the smallest motor driven tool will likely trip the overload circuit.

It's louder than the more expensive "super-quiet" models, but not by much, and it does have some annoying design elements. The oil reservoir is a pain to get to, both for checking level and filling, and it's difficult to tell when the tank is getting near full when re-fueling, making it very easy to over-fill.

Also, in the manual I received, the NGK CR5HSB spark plug number given as a replacement is not correct -- it should be an NGK CR5HSA. The CR5HSB has a solid terminal end, and this unit's plug connector only works with a threaded terminal end, which the CR5HSA has. And the odds are you may need a replacement plug soon, as my unit came supplied with a Torch A7RTC, which carbon fouled after only a couple of hours use. So far, the NGK replacement has been working great, and it should be readily available at any motorcycle shop.

But overall, this little generator has met my needs, making it a good value.

Works great if you can get it to work
I am a photographer who bought this generator to power a couple of computers and maybe a printer. It works great for that, but you have to trick it into working. Meaning you have to be very specific in the way that you plug things into it or else the overload light comes on. It seems to be very sensitive to which extension cord you use, 15ft seems to be the limit. Also, if you use a power strip don't even think about using the switch on it as it will trip the overload every time. The overload situation wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to stop the generator each time to reset it.

After about 20 restarts I figured out you pretty much have to go in order from largest load (My 17" DELL XPS) to the lightest load which was a cheapo Lexmark printer. Any variation caused issues. On the plus side you do feel like you have accomplished something when you get everything up and running. My peak load was 4.7AMPS and it handled it fine, this included a 17" Dell XPS (often running at full load processing pictures), a toshiba 15" Laptop an LG 19" monitor, netgear wireless N router and a cheapo lexmark inkjet.

I have used this generator for 1 event and I am thinking real hard about returning it, there are just too many bugs with it. I wasn't expecting the world with this generator, I was expecting something that would be for the most part hassle free with my small electrical load. What I got was something that is great when it works but frustrating to no end when it doest.

Not bad for the price
For the price it is ok,I was thinking 800 watts would do more than it can,so you are limited to what you can plug into this thing.
The oil is tricky,the manual is unclear.
Put in gas & put oil in the oil reservoir.
IT IS A GAS ENGINE (not a 2 cycle like some think)

3 or 4 pulls and it started up.
Ran smooth and sorta quite.

If you try to plug in a high watt or high amp tool (chainsaw)
The overload light will light will come on,shut it off,wait 1 min,restart it and plug in a lamp or low amp item..then it will work fine.

Light weight, well built, looks good, and is easy to use
Received the shipment on time and in good condition. Well built and runs great. The generator will power a TV but the the picture shows a lot of noise from the generator. Maybe using a long extension cord would improve the picture quality. I have not been able to find anything with a motor that the generator would run. Great for lights or for keeping my battery charged on my RV (that's what I bought it for in the first place). Light weight, looks good, and is easy to use. Just don't by it if you have a tool to run.

Great!!!
I love my new Toro 1800. It's small enough (I can easily lift it and carry it anywhere I want, including to the basement for storage), it's "greener" than gas-powered snow throwers, and it's cheaper.

You can't expect it to clear *any* amount of snow - but in quite snowy December 2008 here in Chicago, I could use it on 10" of snow. I could not easily use it at the curb though, where village plows put up a lot of heavier snow from the street - used shovel there. If you want to clear all snow with a thrower (i.e., without using a shovel), this Toro might not be for you.

Make sure you can reach all parts of your driveway with 100ft power cord attached to unloaded power outlet (mine is in the garage). Manual says 100ft or 150ft cords would do though.

Also, they have a terrible design of the bolt hole on the right part of the handle, where face plate is attached. You need to insert the bolt through the hole and go around a thick power cord that is inside that tube. It may be tough. Maybe try not to leave it unassembled in the cold for a long time - so that power cord inside that tube remains at least somewhat flexible.

But if you are looking for a complement to your shovel (not a replacement), I would recommend it.

Works Great!!
I purchased this snow blower in order to regularly blow snow from my 30' walkway entrance up to my front door. I also use it to clear a path up to my wood pile from my deck (50'). It works exactly as described. I am having no problems blowing snow. It is quick and easy. The long electric cord is a bit of a pain but manageable. I love it!

MY BACK IS GRATEFUL
I had hopes for this item because my husband and I both have bad backs (I have 4 herniated discs, fibromyalgia and chronic sciatic pain). We have a city house with only about 50 ft of sidewalk, and 10 feet of driveway to shovel since we park the cars at the end of the driveway. I had hoped that since we don't like gas powered tools and have such a small area to do that this item would be great for us. We got the snowblower delivered from Amazon a day before a 12" snow storm. It had been reduced the week I was considering it to 279 so I took it as a sign. Got free super saver shipping. I found it slightly tricky to put together because of the wires through the handle thing, but not as bad as some made it sound. I am a woman with a some mechanical knowledge (more than my husband who also had the flu that weekend). I used it three times during the storm, after each time about 4 inches had come down. It worked great, and was almost exactly like using our electric lawn mower. I was able to move the snow with a basic push pull motion which was SOOO much better than the bending, lifting and throwing of shoveling. The only difference was that the lawn mower still cuts while being pulled back, but the snow thrower only throws snow when moving forward. It pulls itself somewhat so I also didn't find myself having to work hard at pushing it at all. (we had bought the Toro snow SHOVEL which I stopped using years ago because of the effort to push it along). My husband was sick through this storm so I did it all and it was great. I could tell that alot of it was made of plastic so I didn't just go out there and ram it through the heavy stuff the plow left in the driveway. It definitely is not happy to hit chunks of ice and has a lot of plastic parts. It seemed to want to climb up over the icy stuff which was helpful in taking it down in thinner layers to avoid breaking it. I also ALWAYS chop up the stuff with a shovel before shoveling/snowblowing if its had time to freeze. You sort of want to hold onto the machine with two hands (there are two handles) to SHAVE it down where it is icy or full of chunks from the plow. The directions recommend this as well. At @35 lbs it was fine for me to do that. My neighbors looked envious. It took a bit of time, but not having to lift the shovel full of heavy, icey snow was great. I also liked what a open area it cut around the cars, which are parked in a narrow driveway between close houses. When we shovel it usually just slides down and its hard to dig out the cars. We also have uneven slate side walk and driveway that the toro snow SHOVEL didn't work well on, but this snow THROWER was fine on it. Of course my daughter did some clean up work with the shovel afterwards. I don't think any snow blower will get it perfectly clean down to the sidewalk/pavement. So, I only used it for one storm so far, but it saved me alot of back trouble. I would recommend it for those who have small area to clear, who are comfortable using an outdoor electrical corded machine(it does get stiff in the cold and you have to keep it clear!), and those who don't mind "taking it slow and easy" with a small machine that has a lot of plastic parts. If you're someone who demands power, have a large driveway, want to do over 6" at a time or want to be able to just blast through the heavy stuff from the plow, I don't think this is for you. I also am having trouble having the hood stay at a bent angle. Wants to just shoot up straight all the time. So I am working on that, probably needs different bolt/washer. But I really am happy with it so far.

A true winner
This is my second winter with this snow blower, after coming in from using it just now I had to post a rave! So far it has saved me countless backbreaking shovelfuls of snow. It can easily handle 6" snow falls and can nibble and wear down up to a foot of snow for a few running feet. It even handles the heavy stuff that the snowplows throw up at the end of my driveway. (Sometimes in heavy stuff the output pipe clogs - it takes but a second with it not running - to punch the clog back down. No problem!)

I don't have a garage, and don't want to store gasolene in my basement, so this is perfect. Each storm I do have to haul it up the basement stairs, but it is light and has a handle right above its center of gravity so this is not a problem. Its light weight means that out in the snow I can manouver it easily - even pick it up and set it down in a different direction.

I don't enjoy snowstorms, but this little guy has made them much easier!

5 Stars With Reservations
I love it!!
I give it 5 stars with reservations. I put this together in no time, had no problem with getting the handle to line up, just used a flashlight to help see the holes lined up. I find the extension cord be be no problem at all, its very lightweight and only 50' long, my driveway is 1 car wide, 2 car long.
It works great and beats shoveling.
I read all the reviews carefully before buying, knowing that sometimes you get a dud. The belt issue was worrying me, but i bought it anyway for my significant other for Christmas. Well, it snowed before Christmas so i gave it to him early. (We're in our 50's, so i didn't want us shoveling because of heart attacks etc, plus getting a small driveway plowed adds up moneywise). So..he had to work, i got to snowblow. It was fantastic!! Then the next snow I brought the blower out for him and he got 2 little pushes and it stopped! I took it apart and tried to put the belt back on myself, but it was too tight, the hardware store did it for me. So it snowed 2 days ago, i took it out, 2 little pushes and it stopped!! I was ready to cry. I pulled the side off it and was able to put belt back on (the way it was sitting, i think the guy put in on wrong) anyway, took it back out and worked like a charm! So, needless to say, i am still impressed with this toro, I will see how it works the next storm.

Great Little Lawn Tractor
I've had two lawn tractors before I got the Poulon. I got the Poulon direct from the factory in a wooden crate. Getting the machine uncrated was not difficult after I realized I needed to let some air out of the tires so they would pull out of the slats holding the machine firmly in place. All I needed to do was attach the steering wheel, you'll need a cresant wrench. The mower already had oil in it. Added gasoline and it started right off first try. It cuts cleaner (more smoothly) than my old Ranch King. One thing I really like about the Poulon is the extreme ease of manuvering it around. It was almost like I have power steering as compared to the Ranch King or a MTD I owned several years ago. The Poulon makes far sharper turns than the others; not quite zero radius but a lot nearer to it. Another feature I really Appreciate is the neutral key position you can activate in order to cut while in reverse. The feature whereby you can set the hand brake and leave the mower still running, while you get off to remove something in the way, is a big help too. I haven't had the mower long enough to evaluate its longevity; but up to now its been one fine machine.