Flymo Contour XT Electric Grass Trimmer and Edger, 300 W, Cutting Width 25 cm

Excellent purchase, it is so much more powerful than other makes/models and so easy to use. Fantastic on your lawn edges and does not struggle at all. Only comment I would make is it’s a heavy unit being the bigger model but doesn’t bother me. The black & decker went straight in the bin

The assembly instructions were difficult to follow thank goodness for google and you tube videos once assembled the trimmer does all you would expect regarding cutting and edging apart from it being slightly heavy it’s a very competent tool

Arrived in good condition . The flymo Trimmer is excellent tool & sturdy in manufacture works really well, the height adjustment makes it easy to use & no strain on my back. Very easy to assemble instructions. Would recommend this tool.

Great item, I can find nothing nevative to say about this piece of kit.I would agree that keeping the trigger on requires a fair grip but if you can't manage it ask yourself "should I be using a powerful strimmer?"The lawn edging as to be seen to be believed, very well designed.

At the most basic level, this Flymo Contour 500E strimmer did its job and helped me cut down the area of overgrown lawn I was worrying about. So that's good. However, I had a struggle putting it together (the instructions were very poor) and I found it really unwieldy & awkward to use. The power lever requires a pretty strong grip to keep it squeezed.The product comes in a conveniently compact box for delivery, but the down side of that is that you have to assemble the bits. There are instruction diagrams and (very limited) text descriptions, but there are errors in some of the explanations, for example the numbers identifying components in the text don't match the numbers on the diagrams. I'm moderately capable with this kind of thing, but it took me 15 minutes to put everything together and I'm still not confident that I fitted the strimming cord properly. The product came with a cassette of strimming cord in place in the machine, which is good, but I'm unsure whether it is fitted right, as the diagrams for that are really unclear. But it cut the grass and I still have both my eyes and all my digits, so I guess it's OK.Having said that, my arms really ache after using the strimmer for 20 minutes or so. It isn't really heavy, but it doesn't feel well balanced and it takes a real effort to keep the power lever pressed while manoeuvring the machine. I'm a middle aged man of average strength and it seemed like a really hard squeeze was required to keep the handle pressed to keep the motor running.So for me or my stronger, fitter friends this is ok to use, but I would not be recommending it to anyone who doesn't have reasonably strong arms and a good grip!Overall, it does the job but could be more user friendly and needs a better set of assembly instructions.

This fly trimmer is a very good unit, I have a large garden but can be a little heavy after long useIt is of good quality and is well made, with having a large garden it dose the job easily

My 18 year-old Flymo grass trimmer recently gave up the ghost. The plastic joint on the shaft had snapped and whilst the motor was running as well as ever, it was rendered unusable. I did my usual research and decided upon this particular 300W version as a like-for-like replacement.The main selling point for me was its lawn edging ability and in particular, the design of the edging wheel. Many trimmers seem to have only one or two small rollers which I though may not last the test of time whereas this one has a large central wheel - much sturdier and more practical looking. It's performance on paper is slightly higher than my old one with 50 extra watts of power and a 2cm larger cutting diameter. It doesn't seem like much of a difference but in practice, is very noticeable.If I had reviewed this strimmer immediately after using it for the first time, I'd have said it was horrible and wouldn't have recommended it. It was a bit of a faff to build (mainly because I found the instructions to be poor due to the lack of text) and I ended up just looking at the photo of the trimmer on the box to see what it should look like once assembled. It's a wee bit heavier than my old trimmer - probably because its bigger but is still pretty light. However, the shaft flexes at the plastic joint and this means that it wobbles about a bit when you're using the trimmer to cut tall grass. I'm not entirely convinced of its longevity but we'll see.The main issue I had when I first used it was that when used as an edger, you have to strim from right to left. With my old one, I did the edges from left to right so found it quite difficult to control and had to work out an entirely new route around the garden instead of the one I'd followed for 18 years. This meant that some plant leaves met with an untimely end and the lawn edges looked 'less than linear' (a mess!) in some places. With my old trimmer, you only had to flip the entire thing over to swap between edging and long grass trimming but with this, you have to push a button and flip only the trimmer head over; a case of slightly pointless 'progress.' However, with an open mind, I thought that I'd gradually get used to this new approach and I certainly have. I'm 5ft 10in and find that the overall length of the trimmer is just fine and I don't have to stoop at all, especially when using it as an edger as most of the weight is over the large wheel.I mentioned the slight step up in specification compared to my old Flymo trimmer. The extra 50 watts makes this trimmer feel significantly more powerful than my old one to the degree that wearing PPE is a must. Even a stray bit of strimmer line pinging off can feel like you've been shot with a BB gun and will leave a 5p-sized red, painful lump on uncovered legs. It'll easily kick up small stones when you're trimming around gravel beds and generates enough dust in dry conditions to make me appear as if I've served a shift down t'pit. I'm exaggerating about that but a shower is definitely in order after using this! The extra 2cm cutting diameter means that the trimmer will do a better job of edging further down the sides of the lawn where grass can grow outwards. I'm not finding the rather flimsy-feeling leaf protector to be much use though and just take a bit of extra care around tree trunks and overhanging plants instead.I've had no issues whatsoever with the twine breaking during use. I've always found that the trick with auto-feed systems is to stop completely every 45 seconds or so and allow the trimmer to spool out more line, thereby preventing it from getting shorter and shorter then eventually becoming unclipped from the reel and having to be re-loaded. It's certainly cut through everything I've asked it to - and then some!I have about 300 linear meters of lawn edge to trim each week during the growing season and (now!) find that this trimmer is well up to the job. It's a mixture of straight and curved edges against soil beds, patio and gravel, with a couple of tree trunks thrown in too. I've included some photos showing the type of edging I do and the results I've achieved. This is a good trimmer, especially for lawn edging. It's more than powerful enough for general domestic use and with a bit of practice, gives excellent results. My only reservation is that plastic joint in the shaft and if that was sturdier and of a better design, the trimmer would be worthy of five stars.

Fantastic strimmer. Best we've owned. Also great for edging. Borders have never looked so neat.