I tried this lightweight cordless mower from VonHaus – it's under £200 and I'm so impressed with the results

If you're in the market for a new lawnmower, or perhaps you've never bought one before (me too!), then I've been testing a great buy that's cordless, easy to use, and it offers 5 cutting heights: the Vonhaus cordless lawn mower 40V.

Essentially, it's the best lawnmower for dummies — I'm still impressed with my before-and-after photos even now. The best part about it? The Vonhaus Cordless Lawn Mower 40V, £189.99, is less than £200, and with a wide 33cm cutting width, tidying your small or medium-sized lawn becomes a swift job.

Although my garden itself isn't small, the lawned section is. I have a big patio and a large deck, so I don't need a huge mower (nor do I have the space in my shed to store one). Also, although I do have an outdoor socket, this is used for my hot tub, so it was important that my mower be cordless. This also makes it ten times easier to use, in my opinion. I wasn't bothered about whether it was bagged or mulched, but luckily, this one can do both, and its basket is hefty at 30L.

I tested this mower for two months, and during this time, I used it to cut my grass twice. As someone who isn't well-versed in the world of lawnmowers, I found it super easy to use and even easier to manoeuvre around my garden and eventually, store in my shed. Here's how it performed around corners, against weeds, and around decking, plus how easy it is to clean after the job is done...

In a nutshell

A great-value lawn mower that's also easy to use, this VonHaus buy is a total game-changer that's convenient for tidying a small or medium-sized lawn. It's extremely customisable with a height-adjustable handle and five cutting heights, from 25mm to 65mm. It even offers the choice of mulching the cuttings or collecting them in its large 30L box.

Cordless for your convenience, it offers a 25-minute battery life with a one-hour charge time. Storage-wise, its handle folds and its grass bag detaches to ensure it takes up less space in your shed.

While in use, this mower was effective at cutting longer and shorter grass, as well as trimming weeds and cutting around corners of decking and patio. Afterwards, clean-up was minimal, and maintenance was basic. If you want something simple and affordable that does the job fast, this lawnmower is it. My only complaint? On first impressions, it's not the most sturdy lawnmower I've ever seen. So, as long as you're only using it every few weeks for a sensible-sized lawn, it's perfect. Also, it's backed by a standard 2-year warranty, should you have any issues.

Product Specs

• Suitable for (lawn size): 300m2 (medium-sized lawns)
• Power: 40V
• Propulsion:
• Cutting options: 25mm, 35mm, 45mm, 55mm, 65mm
• Deck material:
• Weight: 10.4kg
• Dimensions: L102cm x W37cm x H121cm
• Cutting width: 33cm
• Cutting heights: 5
• Grass collection: 30L basket
• Motor speed: 3900RPM
• Blade:
• Folding: Yes

Unboxing the Vonhus Cordless Lawn Mower 40V

This lawnmower did arrive in a sizeable box, but this wasn't too heavy and I managed to move it by myself, from my front doorstep to my garden. On opening the box, I was pleased to see minimal packaging. The main unit was wrapped in a plastic bag, and the cable and battery were in separate recyclable cardboard boxes.

Setup was minimal and easy. It was explained in the instructions but essentially, you needed to unfold the handle and ensure it was sturdy. Then, it was time to attach the collection basket to the back.

The battery arrived fully charged, which was handy as my grass needed cutting ASAP. The battery displays its charge level in three bars, and after mowing my entire lawn, it had only dropped one bar.

Who will it suit?

This lawnmower is great for those looking for a lightweight option, whether they're unable to carry anything heavy or because their lawn is on a gradient, so they don't want to be pushing a heavy weight up and down. It's also great if you have minimal outdoor storage, as its handle folds and its grass collection bag detaches for storing.

Performance-wise, you probably wouldn't want to use it to tidy a huge lawn. This would be time-consuming as its cutting width is 33cm, plus you might need to empty its 30L basket more than once (it was half full after one mow of my medium-sized lawn). Its battery life lasts for 25 minutes, if not a little longer. It did manage to mow over tough weeds and around my decking with ease, but obviously, you still need to use another tool for proper weed removal and tidying around the edges.

For less than £200, it's a total steal considering that it's cordless and storage-savvy. You can also sometimes find it on sale.

What is it like to use?

As someone who had never used a lawnmower before, I found this one extremely simple to use. Okay, my husband had to run me through the basics. But after that, I was off, and I couldn't believe how simple and fast it was.

Before setting off, you need to ensure the handle is sitting at the right height. I did find that this definitely could have been better explained in the instructions, but essentially, there are 5 height settings, but in different places. There are two choices on the handlebars, and these require you to unscrew the locking levers on either side. There are two holes to choose from.

Otherwise, there are three more height settings lower down on the handlebars. To access these, you need to press each handle release button and pull the handle to reveal three holes. Once you realise that it's there, it's pretty easy to work, but most people would miss this extra feature.

Then comes the cutting height — they say to set the mower to the highest cutting height when cutting over uneven ground or in tall weeds.

If your grass is too long, start at the highest cutting position and work your way down to the lowest. If the grass is longer than 10cm, then you'll need to go over it twice to get it to reach a maximum height of roughly 8.3cm.

You will notice a drastic height difference in between cutting height 1 and cutting height 5. In the manual, you'll find the exact measurements of these levels:

• 1 - 25mm
• 2- 35mm
• 3- 45mm
• 4 - 55mm
• 5- 65mm

I also took photos of the mower at height 1 and height 5, so you can see the difference.

Otherwise, like most lawn mowers, this one has a built-in safety feature, which requires you to press a button at the same time as pulling the trigger on the handle in order to turn it on.

This is to prevent you from accidentally turning it on. Once the lawn mower is running, you can release the side button, and you need only hold your hand on the trigger to keep it going.

In terms of runtime, the battery arrived fully charged. I've managed to get two uses out of it, and even still, the battery is displaying two out of four bars, meaning that it still has 25% charge.

Roughly, each mow of my lawn has taken a maximum of 10 minutes. At this estimation, I'd expect one battery life to offer 2-3 uses for me.

Lawn mowing

Corners

Let's talk about edges, in particular: edges around a patio. Now, I wasn't too sure what to expect when it came to this part of mowing my lawn. I went around the edges first, so this was pretty much my first impression of using the mower.

The before photo shows just how long and thick my grass was before tackling it with this mower. This particular corner was quite tough, but the lawnmower tackled it with ease.

Initially, I set my lawnmower to cutting height 5 and went over this patch as there were a couple of visible weeds. It tackled these with no problem, and then I set it to cutting height 1. It was then that I felt that it was finding it harder work, but still, it managed to cut well, and the results were pretty much perfect.

While I will still be going around the outline of my patio with my grass strimmer, this is admittedly impressively tidy, and I was pleased that the mower managed to reach into the corners of the patio quite well.

Decking edging

I then used this mower to trim the grass around the edge of my decking, as I wanted to see whether it would really reach the edges, or if I would need to dig my strimmer out of my shed to tackle this job.

It did a good job of reaching deep into the sides, especially as the ground is slightly uneven on this side of my garden. I did have the mower on cutting height 5 at this point in time. There were a few small spots I found I had to go over with my strimmer, just to make sure the grass was totally level, but otherwise, I was impressed at its edge-to-edge ability to trim around decking.

Collecting leaves

The second time I used this mower, we had recently trimmed our laurel hedges in our garden. This meant that a few leaves had fallen and were sitting on my lawn. Instead of picking them up, I had read in the manual that this mower can also tackle leaves, and it just mulches them, which I thought I would put through the test on a particularly leafy part of my grass.

To my surprise, and my convenience, the mower managed to collect all of the large leaves from my hedge. I was super impressed!

Weeds

I had quite a few weed patches in my garden, in particular around the edges. This mower managed to tackle them well, and initially, I went over them at cutting height 5. I then worked my way down to cutting height 1. For most of the weeds, two mows were enough. But for one larger spot, I had to go over it about four or five times, but it did eventually break.

General grass cutting

When it came to general grass mowing, excluding weeds, sides and leaves, this mower did a great job. After I'd tackled the tricky bits, I set it to setting 1 to go around the entirety of my garden, and I was impressed.

It worked fast; I was able to ever so slightly see where I had already mowed, and it was easy to turn around corners. At one point, I even managed to do it one-handed so I could also take photos at the same time.

Cleaning

This mower does require minimal cleaning, and especially so if you're using the mulching attachment, as its collection box won't even need emptying.

I found that the exterior didn't really require a brush-down after using it with the mulching attachment. It was pretty clean, but some people might like to clean the wheels before rolling them into a shed.

Maintenance-wise, all you really need to do is ensure that the battery is charged before each use. Also, you won't want to store the battery or its charger in an outbuilding such as a shed. So keep that part indoors.

If you are using the collection box, you need only slide it upwards to detach it from the mower (initially, you might find this tricky, but once you get used to doing it, it's fine) and empty it in your garden waste or wherever else.

It has a handle to make this easy. After cleaning my entire lawn with the grass box attached, I detached it, and it was half full.

Storage and maintenance

This lawn mower is quite sizeable before folding its handle and removing its collection basket. That being said, once both of these have been done, it's a lot smaller and it will fit into a smaller shed.

To fold the handle down, you need to loosen the orange locking levers. Once these are loose enough, the handle will fold over the unit, resting near the handle on the main part of the mower. Then, using this handle, you can lift it to where you'd like it.

Its manual doesn't say anything about wall mounting, so I would be hesitant to do so. The only accessory included is the mulching attachment, and when not in use, this stays attached to the mower.

When you don't want to use it, you just lift the flap before inserting the grass collection basket, to allow the mulch to reach into this basket.

Maintenance-wise, all you really need to do is ensure that the battery is charged before each use. Also, you won't want to store the battery or its charger in an outbuilding such as a shed. So keep that part indoors.

How does it rate online?

You can only buy this lawnmower from Vonhaus' website, and here it has 102 reviews and a 4.5-star rating. Most reviewers agreed that it's easy to assemble, lightweight and simple to use.

Shoppers love its 25-minute battery life and the fact that you can use this battery with selected tools from VonHaus. Otherwise, out of the 102 reviews, only 12 people rated it less than 4 stars out of 5.

How does it compare to similar models and its predecessors?

VonHaus only sells two cordless lawnmowers, and the other one is a mini lawnmower. The VonHaus Mini Cordless Lawnmower costs £129.99 and offers 18V of power. This is brilliant for tiny spaces as its cutting width is 21cm (VS 33cm for this 40V mower). It offers 3 cutting heights and a similar run time of 25-30 minutes, but a longer charge time of 2 hours. It weighs half the amount at 4.9kg, and its handle dismantles, so it takes up minimal storage space. 21 reviewers have given it a 4.5-star rating.

When compared with our best-rated lawnmower, the Husqvarna Aspire LC34 P4A, which is £259, this VonHaus model offers a lot of the same specs for a much cheaper price tag. The Husqvarna Aspire is slightly heavier at 11.8kg, but both offer a 30L basket and the option for mulching. It offers just 4 cutting heights from 25mm to 65mm, whereas the VonHaus offers 5. When it comes to battery life, both offer 25 minutes of runtime. The Husqvarna can be wall-mounted in a shed and folds for easy storage, and it's slightly quieter than the VonHaus when in use.

Should you buy the Vonhaus Cordless Lawn Mower 40V?

If your lawn is considered small or medium, and if you want something that's affordable and easy to use, then this lawnmower is a great option. In comparison with our top-rated option, it's a lot cheaper at under £200, while it's extremely customisable as it offers 5 cutting heights, handle adjustments, and you can either collect the grass you cut or mulch it.

It's a great pick for anyone concerned about weight, as it's just 10.4kg (empty) and where battery life is concerned, it lasts for 25 minutes and has a short charge time of one hour. Tons of reviewers say they managed to cut their grass twice on just one charge. No lawnmower is quiet, but this one operates at 96dB so as not to upset the neighbours. Storage is simple: its handle folds, and its grass box detaches.

It's not the best pick for large lawns or if you need a mower that you can wall-mount in your shed. It could also be too large for a tiny lawn, but there is a mini version of it available, too.

Annie Collyer

Annie tested this VonHaus lawnmower for us in her garden, which is partially paved and decked, with a small to medium-sized lawn in its centre.

Annie used it twice to cut her lawn and managed to squeeze it into her (admittedly busy) shed afterwards.