We will review the DeWalt 20 Volt Max XR brushless self-propelled lawn mower. So, this is a battery-operated lawn mower, and we’re going to put it through some tests on the lawn. We’re going to see how well it does, and we’re going to test it and let you know how it looks.
Buy on Homedepot: DeWalt Lawn Mower Max XR DCMWSP244U2
20 Volt Batteries
One thing that’s kind of strange that DeWalt did on this lawn mower has me scratching my head. Why in the world did they use a 20 Volt battery for years. They’ve been pushing this flex Volt platform, and this lawn mower is not. I already used their 60 Voltflex circular saw and their 60 Volt flex Volt-only battery table saw, so why didn’t they make that on the lawn mower instead of supplying all these batteries and chargers for you? But what we have here is what comes in this box will be the lawn mower itself, 20 Volt batteries and two separate chargers. In terms of pricing, this model, which is self-propelled, sells for $649.
Self-Propelled or Push Lawnmower
Remember, folks, when you’re in the store or shopping for this and buying this online, make sure you’re purchasing the self-propelled model unless you’re specifically looking for push and a glutton for punishment. You want to torture yourself by pushing a lawn mower, especially on rough grass here in Florida.
If you look at the box and look at the description that says very clearly right there brushless direct cordless self-propelled mower, and then you see the logo that says self-propelled. However, look what it says up on the top of the box push mower. This is not a push mower, or I guess it depends on how you want to establish your definitions. Yes, you’re pushing it because you’re standing behind it, but right up here, it’s sort of, it says self-propelled over here, but if you look right over here, it seems like it’s negating what it is just said. So, if it has the 244, then it’s self-propelled.
But if you’re like most people, you’ve probably wondered whether a self-propelled lawn mower is worth the extra money. After all, a push mower is a lot more affordable and does the job just fine, right?
Well, yes and no. A push lawn mower will get the job done in a pinch—but it won’t do it very well. And if you’re using an old-fashioned push mower with metal wheels, there’s a good chance that you’ll end up with blisters on your hands and shoulders and grass clippings in your eyes by the time you’re done. Plus, a push mower will only work on flat areas if you have any uneven terrain (like hills or obstacles).
So, what’s better? Self-propelled lawn mowers are an improvement to push lawn mowers and are designed to make mowing easier on your body and give you more control over where they go while cutting your grass. They usually come with multiple speeds to be used on different types of terrain without straining themselves too much (or burning out their engines). They also come with larger wheels than a typical push lawn mower.
Other Features for DeWalt Lawnmower Review
DeWalt claims you can get up to 60 minutes of runtime. This has three in one mulching bag or discharge.
This also has a 20 Volt Max brushless XR motor, and the kit includes 220 Volt, 10-amp hour batteries and two chargers. This DeWalt cordless self-propelled lawn mower has vertical storage and takes up to 70% less space in vertical storage. DeWalt says that their brushless direct-drive motor delivers up to 28150 RPMs. In addition, it has a push start for easy operation.
And it also has a dual grip adjustable speed and self-propelled control on the DeWalt lawn mower. It has a fold-over handle which enables you to get it ready for vertical storage. It comes with a low battery light indicator, and it has a hardened steel deck. There are six height setting adjustments from one-quarter-inch to four inches. This DeWalt cordless lawn mower comes with a 3-year warranty, one year of free service, and a 90-day money-back guarantee.
This lawn mower was assembled in the USA with global components. The charger was made in China or Thailand, so apparently, they have multiple sources. The batteries were made in China, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. Again, various sources. They could come from anywhere.
DeWalt Lawn mower Performance and Storage Review
So, we’ve let the grass grow up nice and tall because we will test the lawn mower. So just like on the other side, you put the carriage bolt through and make sure the square part goes through that square hole on that side.
You can see the 10-amp battery right next to a 60 Volt amp-hour DeWalt Flex Volt battery. So, my question to DeWalt is, why did we need two of these? Why not just use flexibles? Do we need to stack up to ten amps and ten amps? Do these run one after the other, or do they both run simultaneously?
We need the extra clumsiness of having two more chargers lying around. Why couldn’t they have made a dual gang charger? Why didn’t DeWalt design this whole system so that you could just charge your batteries right there inside the lawn mower? So the batteries took quite a bit of time to charge. I put these on the charger at 7:00 PM. When I checked at 2:00 AM, it was still blinking; you need an overnight charge on these. I don’t know why the charging process takes so long now. We test each battery and make sure they’re both full.
They tell you to make sure that you get two fully charged batteries. You can see the underside with the single blade, and I wish they would have given us a double blade. You get much better mulching when you have a double blade. My current gasoline Honda HRZ lawn mower comes with a double blade, or they call it the twin blade, so it just mulches grass up into smaller little chunks. The blades are removable, and they even suggest that you sharpen the blades too, and I can tell you, I’ve never sharpened any blades in any of my lawn mowers ever, and they still cut pretty good until the day I bought the next unit.
On the right is your side door, so you will put the attachment there if you shoot out the side. When you’re done using your DeWalt cordless lawn mower to mow the lawn, it’s time to store it. Well, what do you do? Do you want to just leave it like that? You can do that or fold it up and stand it vertically. All you have to do is very easy. You just turn a quarter turn here on the knob and then the same with the other side. You just fold it over like that.
And then once it’s folded over, you turn it a quarter of a turn, and you’ll see the pin lock in place and pops right through to unfold the lawn mower and get it ready for use again. You just lay it down flat, then you come over the pivot points, and you’re going to turn your handle lock knobs a quarter of a turn. It is locked, and all you do is turn it a quarter of a turn to disengage it. It’s much better than all the other mowers and edgers I’ve ever had where you have to keep unscrewing them multiple times.
Then you just do the same thing on the other side. If you just pull the handle up and it should lock into place. So, the beauty of this part of the design that I really love is that it just snaps into place. All you got to do is just turn it like that, and it snaps into place, and you don’t have to keep tightening and tightening as we do on the other machines.
Cutting Modes for DeWalt Lawnmower Review
This DeWalt cordless mulching mower will operate in three basic cutting modes: mulching, bagging and side discharge.
Mulching Mode
Mulching is a great way to recycle grass clippings back into the soil. The mower’s blades chop up the grass clippings into tiny pieces left on the lawn with this function. This reduces fertilizer and helps keep your property healthy and green.
Bagging Mode
If you prefer to have your grass clippings collected for composting or disposal, you can use the bagging feature on this DeWalt cordless mulching mower. The bagging system allows you to collect grass clippings in an easy-to-remove bag, so they don’t get blown around by wind or rain as quickly as if they were left scattered across your lawn.
Here’s how you would use it in bag mode. You just grab it by the handle. Here you slip it up the top, and then there are these little lug posts on either side. That kind of glide down the narrow channel, and then it’s just resting in place, and then the door comes right back down, and there’s a gasket on it. There’s a gasket in the bag, and it just closes on it, and there you are bag mode.
Side Discharge Mode
Finally, suppose you want to cut off all of your grass clippings from one lawn area without having them collect anywhere else (such as near fences or sidewalks). In that case, you can use this DeWalt cordless mulching mower’s side discharge feature instead of either of the first two options listed above.
Suppose you want to use side-discharge mode on your DeWalt cordless lawn mower; you have to lift that side trap door. Your side discharge shoot fits right in there, and it clips up onto that little axle, and then you just release it. But, see, it’s flimsy ish. So I’m not a big fan of discharge modes.
DeWalt Lawn Mower Portability and Battery Review
You have the fully enclosed deck on the DeWalt lawn mower. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it that easy for you if you ever have to pick up your DeWalt lawn mower. There are no handles or anything, even though one of their online manuals for this on the Home Depot website for this mower shows that there is a handle there, but there isn’t one, so pretty much the only place you can grab it is kind of underneath the back of the housing. You can comfortably put your hand there as there’s a pretty good area to hold with your fingers. You don’t want to try to do it at the door for the battery compartment.
So, by grabbing around under the front, there’s a space for an axle or something. Here the problem is the black plastic guard on the show. Its sharp edge digs into your finger. It will be tough and painful to lift the lawn mower onto a truck bed or something.
A lot of people don’t know you have this little feature here on your DeWalt mowers under the bottom side of your drive mechanism where the handles are, you come underneath, and you look, and you’re going to see a knob right there, and that’s how you can adjust the speed.
One other thing is strange, but DeWalt says in the owner’s manual that you must use two of the same battery. So if you use mix mode batteries like ones a 10-amp hour and one 5-amp hour, it will run the smallest one first and then stop, and then the lawn mower won’t use the second one. I have no idea why; just make sure you’re using matched batteries.
So, here’s what I’m scratching my head about: DeWalt gives you the big old honking battery, but they give you the wall’s oldest tiniest no thrills, no frills charger. The DCB 107. Why would they give you that and not something like the DCB 118, which is a fast charger? The 10-amp hour batteries take overnight to charge. That’s ridiculous. I have a few of these anyway, and I have several other DeWalt chargers. It’s not as big of an issue to me as it might be to somebody else buying their first DeWalt tool as the lawn mower and doesn’t have a fast charger.
To turn on your lawn mower, you make sure you get two solidly charged 10-amp hour batteries. Take your safety key and insert it there. That keeps unauthorized people from starting your mower, and then you push down the power button. Right there, it says big black button. You push it down, pull back on the ball handler, and you’ll hear it start right up. It’s pretty quiet too. Then, you can let go of the power button, and when you’re mowing it, you’re just holding on to this and then just makes it go. But you’re just going to let go of the ball handle when you want it to turn off.
DeWalt Lawn Mower Test and Power Review
Let’s give this brushless cordless lawn mower a shot and see how well it does on the intense grass. We allowed the grass to grow like three weeks beyond its cutting point. The self-propulsion feels just a little bit weaker than it does on my truly high-end Honda gas-powered lawn mower. But at least it’s a much lighter mower.
I want to go and take it in the backyard and want to do the entire backyard with it, and we’ll see whether it chokes on any of the tall grass back there, and then I want to see how even it cut it when it was done.
I was sure it was going to be weak. Instead, it handled a very wet and thick grass for three weeks like it was nothing. This contraption zipped through areas where I’m sure a gas mower would get bogged down or stop like a Sunday drive down the boulevard. There’s minimal vibration, and it gets the job done quickly.
Since I looked through, you can see that it mulches some of them up. However, it doesn’t do a massive mulch as I hoped. So, most of the leaves in some parts of the area are pretty much unaffected. Same performance on the leaves pile, and it doesn’t look like it’s doing much.
So, it’s run for exactly 30 minutes, so let’s check out the batteries, and you can see all the some of the dust and dirt garden in there. It would have been nicer if they had made some gasket that went around there to keep the grass clippings from getting in there. So, let’s pull out the batteries and see how they look.
So, the battery still got two battery bars left, and so does the other one, so that’s pretty good. So, for 30 minutes, we only used up 1/3 of the battery so far, it’s surpassing that, and you know, we ran this thing through 9 inches of grass. So, I took action at my friend Ernie’s house. He has a quarter of an acre duplex, so I wanted to see if the batteries would last for the entire yard, and again, we found that if you have any slight incline on the side yard, the self-propel is a little bit weak. So you want to make sure you have it on the highest setting.
But remember, the mower is lighter, so it’s straightforward to control it. Before I blow it off, I want to see if there was any grass cut and how much. It is not very much at all. As you can see, right down there to the grass and everything’s so good, it mulches everything up nicely like a powder.
For the most part, a lot of it mulched up pretty nice. Best of all, you have no more oil changes, no more fuel fumes or breathing in exhaust from the lawn mower. You just put in your fully charged battery, and it’s quiet and lighter. And this is the way you do it, folks. This is the way.
My Final Verdict on DeWalt Lawn Mower Review
I mowed the entire yard with only one bar of power left. The yard is about a quarter-acre in size. When the blade is not cutting grass, it also slows down. I set the blade height to level 3, and it stalled a couple of times in high, thick St. Augustine grass, but it was easy to restart.
The mower was simple to assemble, and you can adjust the height to cut grass close or high. I would recommend this lawn mower to anyone with a small amount of grass to cut, and I wouldn’t recommend this mower to someone who has to mow a half-acre or more in one sitting. However, if you have some extra battery, you can continue cutting a larger area at one time.