How to choose a cordless hedge trimmer

Hedge trimmers are sold on blade length because it is the easiest number to print. The spec that actually decides whether the tool can do your hedge is cut capacity, and it is the one most manufacturers leave off the page entirely.

The four specs that matter

Why cut capacity beats blade length

A hedge trimmer's blades are two toothed bars sliding past each other. The gap between teeth sets the largest stem that can be trapped and sheared; anything thicker rides up, stalls the blades and puts the load into the gearbox. That gap is what cut capacity describes, and it is a hard limit rather than a recommendation.

One inch, as EGO publishes for the HT2410, covers annual growth on most established hedges and the woodier stems at the base of a privet or laurel. It does not cover a neglected hedge with three years of growth in it — that is a job for loppers first and the trimmer afterwards.

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Blade length is a control decision

Longer blades clear a wide flat face in fewer passes and are correspondingly harder to steer around a curve, over a corner or along a low hedge you are working down onto. Twenty-four inches is a lot of blade on a knee-high box hedge and exactly right on a six-foot laurel run.

• Long, flat, tall hedges: the longest blade you can comfortably hold. Fewer passes, straighter finish.
• Low, shaped or intricate hedges: a shorter blade. You are steering, not sweeping.
• Above shoulder height: reach is the problem. A pole tool or a platform, not a longer handheld.

Weight, held at arm's length, above your head

6.17 lb sounds trivial until you hold it at head height along ten metres of hedge. Every published hedge trimmer weight you see is likely to be the bare tool: add a pack and the working weight goes up substantially. EGO publishes the bare figure for the HT2410 and does not publish a battery-fitted weight, so we do not quote one.

The missing runtime figure

EGO publishes no runtime for the HT2410 at any pack size. We could estimate one from the trimmer or the edger — the EGO edger attachment publishes a remarkably flat 4.2 to 4.5 watt-hours per minute across four pack sizes — but a hedge trimmer is a different load, and inventing a number is exactly what this site does not do.

What that means practically: if you are on the EGO platform already, the HT2410 runs on packs you own and the runtime question answers itself. If it is your first EGO tool, buy the kit with the biggest pack you can, because you have no published figure to size it with.

The attachment alternative

If your hedge work is occasional, a multi-head power head plus attachments may be the better buy than a dedicated tool. EGO's split-shaft system takes the same power head for the string trimmer, the edger, and the 10-inch pole saw — one motor, one battery, three jobs, and one thing to store.

The arithmetic in favour of attachments is straightforward: you buy one power head rather than three motors. The arithmetic against is that a dedicated hedge trimmer is better balanced and quicker to pick up, and swapping attachments in the middle of a job is a real friction. We work the attachment case through in the pole saw roundup.

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Reach: the spec that decides whether you need a ladder

Handheld hedge trimmers stop where your arms stop. Above that, the choices are a platform, a pole tool or a professional — and only one of those is a purchase you make once.

Note what is missing from that arithmetic: EGO publishes the pole length, and nobody publishes a working-height figure for a handheld hedge trimmer. Our numbers above are stated assumptions about adult reach, not manufacturer specs, and they are there to make the decision concrete rather than to be quoted back.

Blade length in passes

The pattern in that table is the reason weight matters more than length on a big hedge: doubling the run doubles the time you spend holding 6.17 lb at chest height, and no blade length changes that. If your hedge work runs to hours rather than minutes, the tool to compare on is weight, and the specs to read are on the hedge trimmer roundup.

What we cannot tell you

• Runtime for the HT2410. Not published by EGO at any pack size.
• Noise. No hedge trimmer we have specs for publishes a decibel figure.
• How the blades hold an edge. EGO describes them as fully serviceable rather than sealed, which is a maintainability claim, not a durability measurement.
• Cut capacity for competing tools. Most do not publish one, which is why this page only has a figure for one machine.