Yeah, yeah, I know ... Harbor Freight store brand. But ... I've had pretty decent luck with Harbor Freight tools when it comes to tools I don't use constantly. For example, their air nailers have served me well for a very, very long time with numerous periods of intense use.

I am looking to get a set of cordless lawn and garden tools for my place out in the woods. The price of Atlas tools certainly can't be beat. The reviews are good, but I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with them and can offer what they like and don't like. I'm trying to stay away from gas tools because it gets to be a PITA when storing gas tools for long periods of time.

For me there are quite a few things I'd buy from Harbor Freight, but the batteries aren't one. I just don't trust them to be as safe or long lasting as other brands. Just like I won't buy HF jack stands. And since I'm sticking to one battery ecosystem, I'd go red or yellow. But if you must go cheap, I'd go Ryobi over HF.

Report on most popular tools (not specific to batteries) in 2023

Bite the bullet and stay with whatever you currently have at you primary residence....which are probably not Harbor Freight. Ease of mind knowing you can always throw batteries you already have in the car as backups if needed.

If you are looking for lawn and garden, you might also consider Greenworks when Costco **should** put them out soon.

I may be the outlier but my suggestion is to not go with what you have for tools. Have kids and relatives that have the whole rainbow of color tools, lime green, orange, yellow and red, and all their experience with yard tools in those systems have been abysmal. Also several have things like craftsman & kobalt and disappointment all around there also. The only one that has any love is EGO, only if you are willing to buy at least one extra battery and can deal with parts not being available and lots of plastic that should be metal. The only thing that has made the ego viable for them is that people buy kits for the battery and maybe a single tool and sell the others on places like marketplace. This has been the method to keep the trimmer and especially the pole saw alive. Know one that has the stihl trimmer that likes it. If all you need is a pruning saw then buy your colors sawzall and prune away.

So to my if you have realistic expectations, and the duty cycle of battery yard tools is acceptable I suspect Atlas would be fine. Ego & greenworks have been around longer but Sthil, echo & ego pro may be worth a look also. I don't have atlas but do have Hercules with success, and consider them somewhat disposable and typically buy the warranty on more expensive/complex things.

Ryan the Temp said:

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Yeah, yeah, I know ... Harbor Freight store brand. But ... I've had pretty decent luck with Harbor Freight tools when it comes to tools I don't use constantly. For example, their air nailers have served me well for a very, very long time with numerous periods of intense use.

I am looking to get a set of cordless lawn and garden tools for my place out in the woods. The price of Atlas tools certainly can't be beat. The reviews are good, but I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with them and can offer what they like and don't like. I'm trying to stay away from gas tools because it gets to be a PITA when storing gas tools for long periods of time.

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No experience with Atlas tools. But I have purchased several Kimo battery powered tools off Amazon over the last several years and they have held up really well with very good battery life.

if you want low end 40v stuff go Ryobi. Happy with mine and many more options

My experience but I can't recommend FLEX enough. Lifetime warranty and the online reviews also seem pretty stellar.

Astroag said:

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My experience but I can't recommend FLEX enough. Lifetime warranty and the online reviews also seem pretty stellar.

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Aren't they leaving Lowes? Thought I saw that recently.

Hadn't heard this…interesting if not sad news!

Ryan the Temp said:

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Yeah, yeah, I know ... Harbor Freight store brand. But ... I've had pretty decent luck with Harbor Freight tools when it comes to tools I don't use constantly. For example, their air nailers have served me well for a very, very long time with numerous periods of intense use.

I am looking to get a set of cordless lawn and garden tools for my place out in the woods. The price of Atlas tools certainly can't be beat. The reviews are good, but I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with them and can offer what they like and don't like. I'm trying to stay away from gas tools because it gets to be a PITA when storing gas tools for long periods of time.

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In general, no one tool brand does everything the best at the price point you want. You're mostly buying batteries instead of anything the tool generally does. I would recommend biting the bullet and hitching your wagon to some nice tool brand and just collecting their tools. I like using harbor freight for corded dirt cheap purchases.

I am historically a bosch user, but Milwaukee has absolutely blown away the competition on high power draw tools like impact drivers. Am thinking about starting to switch to Milwaukee in the future. Usually you've got to wait for deals to pick up some extra batteries. I did pick up two labtec batteries for my bosch tools after watching a Project Farm Youtube video ranking knockoff battery performance. They have been great.

For lawn work, I will say A) all electric mowers suck compared to gas. The tech just isn't there yet and so you're going to fight whatever is in front of you. Mowers also require huge battery purchases to use and run.
I have an EGO string trimmer and its the best string trimmer I've ever owned, by far. The battery tech is sweet, but the best part is the auto extending head that does a great job cutting down time loadingstring and managing string. It cut my string trimming time in half.

So first order: buy a nice tool and get sucked into the battery ecosystem
second order: buy a good tool that accepts good knockoff batteries (like Labtec).