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I maintain a hillside "grass" easement that spans four properties, and when my neighbors kindly offered to buy me a new EGO mower I turned them down, mainly since the property is very rough on mowers (that I have been sourcing only from curb sides and thrift stores because of the abuse factor).
The persistent neighbors then bought themselves a brand new one so that they could offer me their gently-used (21") one, which I accepted. It's RWD and with 7.5AH battery and fast charger.
So far, one year in, this thing is holding up to the very rough conditions and plenty of rock-strikes, using only the mulching blade setup. It runs for over an hour on most days, that's plenty of walking exercise for me on the undulating terrain.
For anyone that cares, EGO is apparently Chinese-owned ("Chervon"), but with US offices and assets so no concerns about liability/accountability.
For giggles I viewed a few Youtube videos pertaining to EGO battery repair as well as aftermarket "clone" batteries, which eased my concerns about maintaining or replacing batteries in the future.
My EGO mower's only issues are:
1) sometimes there seems to not be enough power to start the blade turning even with a freshly-charged battery, which requires that I push down harder while installing the battery, more than enough to get the solid click sound.
2) sometimes the wheel drive motor fails to disengage from the wheels when I release the Touch-Drive button, so the mower becomes difficult to push forward or pull back (the de-energized motor remaining "in gear"). Pushing alternately forward and back then seems to free it up.
My other positive E-tool choices have been the older Craftsman C3 19.2v system (drills, drivers, recprocating saws and air compressor), most sourced from Goodwill (including some good lithium batteries) for dimes on the dollar.
These tools have held up even to some moderate professional contracting work thus far.
My Walmart Hyper Tough 20v "toy-looking" blower and string trimmer have impressed me over two years time, especially considering the total $99 buy in.
A similarly-minimalist Black & Decker 20v leaf blower I bought the other day at Goodwill for $12.95 (including battery and charger) only offers the "Walmart" level of power with it's Turbo switch held on, but the battery checks out so the default low/quiet power setting is seemingly just the way this thing is intended to be.
I also went through a few older lead-acid battery mowers that I found in the second basement of my 2013 home purchase, these were only about 13" cut and held up to abuse better than I would have expected, being that they were mostly made of plastic. My various all-steel gas mower deck housings didn't hold up as well to the rock strike abuse but of course mowed faster.
Prior to my moving here, I don't believe that this property had ever been mowed, only weed-whacked (but for the confined area immediately behind my house). Of course I never claimed warranty benefits on any of the damage, but did manage to sell a few gas mowers that still had life in them for perhaps less-rigorous use. I replaced a lot of blades, geared/treaded wheels and flywheel locating keys mostly.
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