As most of you will know, Gtech produce a variety of cordless, battery powered products for the home and garden. Elsewhere on our website you’ll find reviews for both the Gtech Cordless Lawn Mower 3.0, the Gtech Cordless Hedge Trimmer 3.0, as well as a review for the 3rd version of the Gtech Cordless Grass Trimmer. All have been given glowing reviews from our staff and are highly recommended for all gardeners. The question is, will Gtech’s Leaf Blower follow suit or is it the first disappointing product in the Gtech line. Read on to find out.
What exactly is the Gtech Cordless Leaf Blower?
Many tools for the garden and home are heavy beasts that require far more effort and strain than necessary. Gtech are a company synonymous with making normally cumbersome or difficult tasks around your home and garden a breeze.
With this in mind, Gtech have set their sights on the normally laborious task of removing leaves and debris from your garden with their new Leaf Blower prodcut. The tool is a gardeners’ dream and has been designed to not only be lightweight but balanced so the nozzle naturally points at the ground without causing strain on the user. It’s powerful, patented air blower motor and nozzle shape shifts leaves and other debris with consummate ease.
What’s in the box?
The amount of components in the Gtech Leaf Blower’s box is refreshingly small and putting it together is incredibly simple. The box contains:
Features
Let’s discuss the headline features of the Gtech Leaf Blower in a little more detail:
Battery Length
The Gtech Leaf Blower comes with a 36v battery, the same one used in the Gtech Falcon Lawn Mower (Gtech’s second generation lawn mower recently replaced by a 3.0 version). The batter takes five hours to fully charge and will give around 20 mins of use from a single charge.
The interchangeable nature of the battery does means if you already have the Falcon Lawn Mower you can share batteries allowing for the possibility of reducing downtime when gardening. If you don’t have a Falcon mower than additional batteries can be purchased from Gtech but at £150 they are quite expensive.
The only real disappointment with the battery is that it uses the older 36V Falcon battery as opposed to the longer lasting and quicker charging 48V one found in Gtech’s new 3.0 product line.
Variable Speed Control
The Gtech leaf blower incorporates a revolutionary variable speed trigger making it easy to change power output. You may think that a variable speed setting on a leaf blower is pointless as you will always be using top speed. If so then Gtech’s Leaf Blower will surprise you. The variable trigger actually becomes second nature the more you use it and you’ll find yourself leveraging full power on things like wet leaves but then reigning the power in naturally when blowing around delicate things like flowers.
Powerful yet Quiet
There’s no doubt the Gtech Leaf Blower is powerful with a motor that spins at over 11,500 times a minute. What may surprise you is how quiet it is. If you’ve ever walked past a professional gardener using a petrol-based leaf blower, you’ll know how loud these tools can get. The Gtech blower, whilst not silent, is sufficiently less noisy with a reported noise level of 104dB at full power. Of course, the variable trigger has an impact here and at low blowing speeds the noise output is even less.
Lightweight and Ease of Use
Whilst not the lightest of Gtech’s home and garden tools, the Gtech Leaf Blower is still relatively light coming in at just over 4kg. The weight is only half the story though, and Gtech have worked miracles on the balance of the machine to make sure the nozzle naturally points at the floor and feels great in the hand.
It’s cordless nature also ensures portability. All this leads to a machine that is pleasant to use and won’t break your back.
Compatible Accessories
Other than an extra battery there isn’t much more that you would need with the Gtech Leaf Blower. The included nozzle is well designed and needs no adaption and the ergonomics of the device are incredibly well thought out.
Things we liked
We love the following:
- The Gtech Leaf Blower is lightweight for a tool of its type and its ergonomic design and weight balance make it a joy to use.
- A 20 minute run time may seem a bit stingy but the power of the machine makes most jobs easily accomplishable within this time frame.
- We were sceptical about the variable speed trigger, but after repeated use it has become second nature and varying the speed becomes natural.
Things we didn’t like
There are many things to admire about the Gtech Leaf Blower and only a couple of negative points to bear in mind before buying:
- We thought the 20 minute run time was more than ample but for those with a large garden it may not be quite enough.
- The machine is quite expensive and currently retails on Gtech’s website at just under £500. You do get a lot of bang for your buck but for some it may be an expense too far.
- Would have been nice if it used the 48V battery from Gtech’s now 3.0 line.
Conclusion
The Gtech cordless Leaf Blower is a good quality tool and will prove a useful addition to most gardeners’ tool shed. It is expensive but for that you are getting a tool that does exactly what it says on the box with very little fuss. Highly recommended.
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We have also reviewed other top leaf blowers which you can read here.
