Flymo Mighti-Mo 300 Li Cordless Lawnmower Review
Flymo have finally cut the cord and introduced their £234.99 Mighti-Mo 300 Li Cordless Lawnmower as a compact offering, apparently with enough battery life to cut an entire tennis court. So is it good enough for Wimbledon?
Design
The Flymo Mighti-Mo Lawnmower needs a simple brief assembly on arrival, which includes connecting the handlebars and clipping the grass box together. But after this you’re all set to go, as the battery helpfully comes pre-charged ready to insert under the front translucent door. What’s immediately apparent is that this is very much a Flymo mower, proudly boasting the tangy orange Flymo colour branding mixed with a grey accent. Actually, we’d go as far as to say that it’s a stylish cordless model; with that chunky front and sweeping silhouette featuring a 30L grass box. One area for improvement would be in the handlebar design: whilst it can be folded by un-tightening the top section, it’s a faff to do at the end of a mowing session, whilst putting it back into the shed or garage, when compared to the quick snap handles seen on Bosch and Black & Decker designs.
The plastics are strong and don’t easily flex when pushed and pulled. Around the front wheels, in particular, we were impressed to see that the plastics are substantial and reinforced so to entirely cover the axle. From past mowing experience with plastic constructions, this is an area that gets knocked about more than any other and accumulates a great deal of strain over a lawnmower's life. Yet whilst we have to respect that Flymo have tried and succeeded in pulling off a well made piece of kit at a really attractive price-point within the cordless segment, there clearly have been savings, and the most obvious comes with the cutting width of the mower. It’s the most compact cordless lawnmower we’ve reviewed so far, with a cutting width of 30cm, but we've still put it to test over our near 1 acre of lawns. To put this into perspective, that’s 6cm less than the previous smallest entry we’ve tested from Einhell. However, the cutting heights are flexible, from 25mm to 65mm, and can be adjusted with ease via a lever on the left side.
Battery Life & Charging
The docking station sports a tidy design, doesn’t need a fan and charges the battery in roughly 100 minutes. The battery itself is a solid rectangular unit, with metal casing and rubberised ends - it feels and looks robust. The mechanism used to get the battery into the mower is a push down action, and when it works it works, but just occasionally the battery dislodges from within its cradle which is annoying. Flymo claim a total runtime of 25 minutes and they’re about right; in fact, we can get a few extra minutes if not taxing the battery all that much during a session. It’s at the lower end in terms of runtime stats, with Black & Decker and Einhell offerings achieving 35-40 minutes and Bosch squeezing out 55 minutes from a single battery.
Manoeuvrability
The UK statistically has smaller lawns than our European friends, so we can definitely see the advantages of being able to wheel the compact Mighti-Mo into areas where a strimmer may have been the only solution previously. For instance, the height of the mower is so low that we have no trouble pushing it underneath benches and around some of our plant bases. This factor is rather convenient as it means we don’t need to move some of our heavier outdoor furniture when mowing. Added to this the Flymo Mighti-Mo travels over our bumpy, uneven and sloped lawn areas with ease.
A small and light design makes for an easy mower to lift up onto different levels, over gravel pathways and, all importantly, it’s easy to manipulate into cutting the likes of awkward lawn banks. Of course, thanks to the design and decent ergonomic handle controls, there’s a minimised pushing effort, but then too comes the noticeable requirement of far more actual passes over our large lawns due to the narrow cutting width. The other minor annoyance is the regularity we need to empty the smallish 30L grass box which pales in comparison to the 50L offering with Bosch’s Rotak 43 LI Ergoflex mower. For lawns around our studio that were sized up to 200m², the Flymo offering is well suited and a practical fit. Not so when we attempted and eventually succeeded, after additional recharges, mowing a 600m² lawn.
Cutting Performance
Ironically the Flymo Mighti-Mo mower is the smallest offering we’ve yet to test, but it actually sports a powerful 40V lithium-ion battery which is 4v more than the previous top dog offerings from Einhell, Black & Decker and Bosch. So despite a small footprint it gobbles up tall grass rather well, with the confidence that the motor does have a cutout if it detects the strain is too much, so not to damage itself. Yet because the cutting area is so focused, it’s harder to see if the added power is all that noticeable. It didn’t hesitate when demolishing out of season daffodils or thin twigs littered on our lawns, but more substantial twigs and tree bark can cause jitters and so it will be interesting to see how well this mower copes in the Autumn. It produces a good result and fares well against the top challengers when it comes to cutting our grass at the specific height setting of 45mm: the finished result is smooth and we can even achieve a decent edge cut as the blade spans the entire bottom of the mower - although a strimmer is still necessary for a perfect appearance. There’s no mulching facility, but you can remove the grass basket and allow cuttings to dispense onto the lawn via the back of the mower. We’d only recommend doing this if cutting no more than 1cm off your lawn, otherwise you’ll clog the mower and you’ll see the cuttings resting on top of the lawn slowly turn brown.
Verdict
Flymo’s first cordless is a compact yet deservedly mighty offering for smaller British lawns. As a bundle, with battery and charger included, it’s definitely good value; we’re just hoping for another model with a larger cutting width to follow soon.