Makita has built one of the widest cordless mower ranges of any tool brand, stretching from a small 33cm push model for a courtyard up to a self-propelled 48cm machine that will take on a half-acre plot. That breadth is helpful once you understand it and bewildering until you do, because the model numbers give almost nothing away. The key to choosing well is to ignore the names at first and work out two things: which battery platform suits you, and how wide a cut your lawn actually needs. Get those right and the correct model picks itself.
The Two Battery Platforms That Shape the Whole Range
Every Makita cordless mower runs on one of two battery systems, and this is the first fork in the road. The larger and older system is LXT, an 18V platform shared across hundreds of Makita power tools. Smaller LXT mowers run on a single 18V battery, while the mid-range models use two 18V batteries together to deliver 36V of power. The newer system is XGT, a 40V MAX platform designed from the start for higher-drain garden and trade machines, with bigger cells and more sustained output for heavier work. The practical difference is that LXT suits small to medium lawns and anyone who already owns Makita 18V tools and batteries, while XGT suits larger lawns and longer mowing sessions where the extra capacity earns its keep.
The reason this choice comes first is that batteries are the expensive part of any cordless system, and they only fit their own platform. If you already have a drawer of Makita 18V LXT batteries from drills and saws, an LXT mower lets you share them and buy the mower body only, saving a large chunk of the cost. If you are starting fresh and have a big lawn, committing to XGT from the outset avoids the frustration of outgrowing an 18V machine. Buying the platform, in other words, is a longer decision than buying the mower, because the batteries will outlive several tools.
Matching the Cutting Width to Your Garden
Cutting width is the number that decides how long mowing takes, because a wider deck clears more grass per pass. The smallest model in the range, the DLM330, has a 33cm (13 inch) cut and runs on a single 18V battery, which suits small gardens of roughly up to 250 to 300 square metres. It is light, easy to store and cheap to run if you own LXT batteries already, with a body-only price around £200 to £250 (about $250 to $320) at B&Q, Amazon or Makita stockists, more once you add batteries and a charger.
Step up to the twin-18V models and the decks widen. The DLM382 has a 38cm (15 inch) cut, a 40 litre grass box, 13 height settings from 20 to 75mm (0.8 to 3 inches) and is rated for gardens up to around 560 square metres, weighing roughly 16kg and running at about 81 decibels, far quieter than a petrol engine. It is the natural choice for a typical family lawn, with a body-only price near £200 to £260 (about $250 to $330) and kit versions with batteries and charger costing more. The DLM432 widens that to a 43cm (17 inch) cut for a larger plot, and the DLM462 reaches 46cm (18 inches) and adds self-propulsion with variable speed and ball-bearing wheels, which takes the effort out of pushing a heavier machine across a lawn of up to around 1,900 square metres. Expect roughly £400 to £500 (about $500 to $650) for the self-propelled DLM462 body.
At the top sits the XGT LM001G, a self-propelled 48cm (19 inch) mower built for the largest domestic lawns and light professional use. Its 40V XGT power and bigger battery capacity let it cut longer and cope with tougher, longer grass without bogging down, and a body-only price around £1,000 to £1,250 (about $1,300 to $1,600) reflects that it is a different class of machine from the LXT models. For most home gardens it is more mower than the lawn needs, but for a large or awkward plot it does the job a petrol machine once did, without the fuel and engine upkeep.
What You Actually Gain From Going Cordless
The appeal of a cordless mower is not only the absence of a trailing cable. The bigger gain is the disappearance of engine maintenance and the faults that come with it. A petrol mower has a carburettor that gums up when fuel sits over winter, an air filter that clogs, a spark plug that fouls and oil that needs changing, and the classic spring failure of a mower that starts then stalls traces straight back to that fuel system. A battery mower has none of it. There is no fuel to go stale, no carburettor to block, no oil to change and no pull cord to fight. You press a button and it runs, then it stops the instant you release the handle, which is also safer.
Makita drives its cordless mowers with brushless motors, which counts for two reasons. Brushless motors waste less energy as heat and friction than the older brushed type, so more of the battery charge reaches the blade and runtime per charge improves. They also adjust their power to the load on many models, spinning a little harder when the blade hits thick grass and easing off in light growth, which protects runtime and gives a cleaner cut. The noise difference is striking too. At around 81 decibels the twin-18V mowers are quiet enough to use early on a weekend morning without waking the street, where a petrol mower of similar size runs closer to 95 decibels and carries far further.
The honest trade-off is runtime. A tank of petrol holds far more energy than a pair of battery packs, so a cordless mower works in charge-limited sessions rather than running all day. For most gardens that is a non-issue, because a single charge covers a typical lawn with room to spare, but on a large plot you plan around it by keeping a charged spare set ready to swap in. This is where battery capacity, measured in amp-hours, becomes the number that decides whether a mow is relaxed or interrupted.
Choosing Batteries and Avoiding the Common Buying Mistake
The mistake that catches buyers out is focusing on the mower and treating the batteries as an afterthought. A body-only price looks attractive until you realise a capable pair of 18V batteries and a charger can cost as much again, and that buying packs too small for your lawn leaves you recharging halfway through. As a rough guide, pair a small lawn with 4.0Ah batteries, a medium family lawn with 5.0Ah, and a large lawn with 6.0Ah packs or a charged spare set, since amp-hours translate directly into how long the blade keeps spinning. On the twin-18V models remember the mower drains both batteries at once, so you need them in matched pairs and it pays to keep a second pair on charge.
Before buying body-only to save money, confirm your existing batteries are the right platform and a high enough capacity, because an LXT mower will not accept XGT packs and vice versa, and a drawer full of small 2.0Ah drill batteries will not get you far across a lawn. If you are buying into Makita cordless for the first time, a kit that bundles the mower, batteries and charger usually works out cheaper than buying the pieces separately and guarantees they match. Whichever model you settle on, size the battery to the lawn rather than the lawn to the battery, and a Makita cordless mower will cut cleanly, start every time and spare you the engine servicing that petrol owners budget for each spring.
One last point applies whichever model you choose: store the batteries well and they will last for years. Lithium packs prefer to sit at around half charge in a cool, dry place rather than fully flat or fully charged in a hot shed, so over winter give them a top-up to roughly half and check them every couple of months rather than leaving them empty until spring. Keep the deck clean of caked grass after each mow, since a clogged underside makes the motor work harder and shortens the runtime you paid for in amp-hours. Treated this way, a cordless Makita asks almost nothing of you between mows, which is the whole point of leaving petrol behind.
