Best cordless lawnmowers UK 2023: mowers for urban gardens

If your lawn is well above the average urban size of around 40m² then this superb cracking model from the house of leading German manufacturer Kärcher is your best bet, and for a number of reasons.

Aside from its attractive strikingly bright, yellow livery, the LMO 18-36 benefits from a cutting deck width of 36cm (perfect for lawns of up to about 120m²), an adjustable handlebar which goes down low for those of shorter stature, four cutting heights that are accessed via a smooth gearstick-style handle on the side, and a large 45-litre fabric grass collector that is a cinch to put on without any fumbling.

However, one of the very best facets of this machine is the quality and design of its 18v battery, which . Firstly, it’s equipped with tough rubberised edges that will prevent it from cracking when you inevitably drop it on the patio paving stones and, secondly, it features an LCD screen that accurately displays the remaining charge in percentages.

Although Kärcher states a running time of 40 minutes, this writer has managed to eke a bit more out of it – up to four sessions on a 60 square metre lawn.

Kärcher is best known for its pressure washers so hats off to its R&D department for coming straight out of the blocks with a mower that puts many established brands to shame in terms of design and efficiency. In our test it

Indeed, this writer has been using it for a year now and it has cut the grass of varying length with zero fuss and right to the very edge.

It even comes with a mulching plug for those who wish to fertilise the lawn while cutting it. Incidentally, if your lawn is smaller (around 50m²), then perhaps consider Kärcher’s the smaller Kärcher LMO 18-33 .

The Greenworks is a top trimmer for small to medium sized city lawns. In our test it performed remarkably well, collecting every last cutting while leaving a very smooth finish.

The bright green G40LM35K2 comes with a 35cm (14 inches) cutting deck, a 40-litre collapsible mesh grass collector, five cutting heights (20mm to 70mm) and an interchangeable 40v 2Ah Li-ion battery that keeps the extraordinarily quiet brushed motor running at full tilt right up to the last drop of juice.

The Greenworks is a doddle to push around and, at 16kgs, it’s easy enough to carry. This reviewer managed to get two separate cuts out of the battery on his small urban lawn, equating to around 30 minutes of continuous use on a single charge.

If you’re looking for a top-performing small mower for urban use, the Greenworks is a great budget option that won’t let you down.

You don’t normally see maintenance-free brushless motors at this low price level point so chances are this Einhell will go on running for years without any issues.

The Einhell GE-CM 18/33 Li is quite angular in design – rather like some models from the Bosch and Greenworks stables – and fitted with a 4.0Ah Power X-Change battery, which is good for about 35 minutes of mowing.

It also features a 30-litre grass catcher (with a filling level indicator flap), a three-height single-fold handlebar system and a handy cutting height lever (in five increments, from 25-65 mm).

We only recently received this mower and, Although our grass is still short from the UK’s exceptionally wet winter, we did manage to find some longer patches to test it on and

it passed with flying colours, cutting pretty much to edge and leaving no unsightly clumps in its wake. The large wheels also made it easy to manoeuvre.

If you’re a fan of German engineering (who isn’t?) and are in the market for a highly competent and very keenly priced mower that does the job and does it well, then this one comes highly recommended.

This award winning bright red 34cm contender is one of the best medium-sized turf tacklers in the business. The Cobra MX3440V comes with a 40v Li-ion battery that provides about 30 minutes of running time, a decent sized 35-litre clipping collector and a height-adjustable, two-way handlebar folding system for easy storage.

At 16.3kgs, the Cobra is light enough to carry short distances and very easy to push around.

Crucially, it cut last summer’s our test patch exceedingly well though, like so many small cordless mowers, its brushed motor did tend to bog down when faced with really grass that had never seen a mower (the secret here is to start the mower with the front end raised off the ground before gently lowering the deck onto the sward).

For a mower in this low price band, it’s good to see a cutting height adjustment handle on the side where some other budget models require manually lowering and raising both axles. Another nice touch is the battery power indicator on the handlebar instead of the battery itself.

Cobra is one of the UK’s leading garden machinery manufacturers so you can be sure there are plenty of spare parts available. From our experience you generally can’t go wrong with any of their products and this little cracker is a case in point.

If you have an extensive sward that requires a large mower that truly excels at the task it’s designed to do, look no further than this pricy offering from Gtech.

The rather unimaginatively named Cordless Lawnmower CLM 2.0 comes with an extra wide 42cm cutting deck that’s suitable for lawns up to 250 square metres and beyond. Uniquely, this one features a single blade that, according to Gtech, was ‘designed to offer efficient results’.

This writer can vouch that it works exceedingly incredibly well – and right to the very edge of the lawn – even if it does create a growling sound that’s unlike any other mower on the market.

Most lawnmowers of this size tend to be heavy weigh a ton yet this one feels extremely light and nimble, whether pushing it around the lawn or carrying it to the shed. Its two-way folding mechanism, too, helps compact it into one of the tidiest of packages.

The Gtech comes with a 48V Lithium-ion battery that delivers up to 40 minutes of running time, a 50 litre grass collector and six cutting heights from 3cm and 8cm 30mm to 80mm.

If you can stretch the budget to a smidge below the £500 mark £450 then this is one of the finest mowers currently on the market. Its performance is exemplary, it’s lighter than most of the competition and it looks stylish, too.

Aside from its titchy urban-friendly size, the handsome Flymo EasiStore 300RLi has a unique trick up its sleeve – the ability to be stored vertically on its rear with the grass collector attached to the folded-over handlebar, and be pushed along the garden path like a shopping trolley.

No, we don’t know why no-one thought of this before but it’s a brilliant storage solution for those with minimum space.

If you have a patio-sized lawn of around 30-40 square metres then this 30cm mower is your very best bet.

For starters, its body is small enough to fit into a kitchen worktop cupboard and that by lawnmower standards is blooming tiny. Assembly is pretty straightforward, too.

The 300RLi performed very well on our smaller test patch though the cutting height was a faff to adjust because it doesn’t come equipped a lever system like its 34cm stablemate or indeed the majority of slightly larger mowers. Instead, you have to turn it over and move the two spring-loaded wheel axles into one of three cutting height positions. On a positive note, the lowest position also engages a rear roller for creating lawn stripes – but only if your lawn is immaculately laid with no lumps and bumps.

You get two batteries with this mower This mower runs on two batteries at a time and they provide up to 35 minutes of mow time, which is par for the course. The easy-to-empty 30-litre plastic grass collector, meanwhile, is of ample capacity for smaller gardens.

If you’re looking in the market for a small-bodied cordless model that’s light as a feather (11.2kgs) and a doddle to store then this one’s right up your garden path.