Ryobi has built its cordless mowers around one idea: a single battery that powers everything you own. If you are weighing one up, the most useful starting point is to match the deck width and battery size to your lawn, then decide whether you need a brushless motor. As a quick rule, the 33 to 37cm models suit small lawns, 40cm covers a medium garden, and the 46cm brushless model handles larger plots. Below that headline sit the details that decide whether you end up happy or frustrated, and they are worth a few minutes before you spend anything.
How the ONE+ battery system shapes the whole range
The bulk of Ryobi’s home mower line runs on the 18V ONE+ battery platform, the same packs that drive the brand’s drills, strimmers, hedge trimmers, blowers and more than two hundred other tools. This is the single biggest reason people buy into Ryobi rather than a one-off mower from another brand. If you already own ONE+ tools, the mower body alone, sold as a bare or tool-only unit, drops your cost sharply because you reuse the batteries and charger you already have. If you are starting from scratch, you buy a kit that includes a battery and charger, and every later tool can then be bought bare.
Battery capacity is measured in amp hours (Ah), and it sets your runtime. A 4.0Ah pack is the sensible minimum for a mower, a 5.0Ah or 6.0Ah pack gives more cutting time, and the larger brushless mowers take two 18V batteries at once to deliver more power and a longer run. The catch worth knowing is that the bigger decks draw current faster, so a 40cm mower does not run twice as long as a 33cm one on the same battery. If your lawn takes more than about half an hour to cut, plan on a second battery so you can swap and keep going while the first charges. Reviewers at Gardeners’ World, who test cordless mowers each year, consistently flag runtime and a spare battery as the deciding factor for medium and larger lawns.
Brushed or brushless: the choice that decides runtime and lifespan
Ryobi sells both brushed and brushless mowers, and the difference is not marketing. A brushed motor uses small carbon contacts that physically rub against a spinning part to transfer power. They work, but the friction wastes energy as heat, wears the brushes down over time, and limits how hard the motor can push before it bogs down in long or damp grass. A brushless motor, badged HP in Ryobi’s range, uses electronics instead of physical contacts. Less friction means more of the battery’s energy reaches the blade, so you get longer runtime from the same pack, more torque to power through thicker growth, and a motor with far fewer parts to wear out.
In practice, a brushed Ryobi is fine for a small, regularly mown lawn where the grass is rarely long or wet. If your lawn is medium or large, if it sometimes gets away from you, or if you simply want the tool to last as many years as possible, the brushless premium is money well spent. The motor will hold its cut on the days the grass is heavy, exactly when a brushed mower struggles most, and it should outlast a brushed equivalent by a wide margin.
Which Ryobi mower fits your garden size
For a small lawn, the 18V ONE+ 33cm mower is the entry point. It has a 33cm (13 inch) cut, weighs around 8.5kg (about 19lb), adjusts from 25 to 65mm, and as a kit sits at roughly 220 pounds (about 275 dollars). Expect a little over half an hour of mowing from its battery, which is plenty for a courtyard or a modest front and back. A close cousin in the range, sold in some regions as a 13 to 16 inch ONE+ push mower kit at around 279 dollars, fills the same slot.
Stepping up, the ONE+ HP brushless mowers are where most buyers should look. The 37cm model, tool only, is around 300 pounds (about 375 dollars), with a single-handed six-position height adjustment from 25 to 75mm and a 45 litre grass box. The 40cm version runs to about 360 pounds (about 450 dollars) and is the natural choice for a medium lawn, while the 46cm brushless model, at roughly 420 pounds (about 525 dollars), uses two batteries and suits larger plots where you want to finish in one or two sessions. In some regions Ryobi also sells a 40V line, including a brushless 20 inch (51cm) walk-behind that turns up as a kit with battery and charger from around 249 to 279 dollars, aimed squarely at bigger lawns.
The mistake to avoid here is buying the widest deck you can afford regardless of your lawn. A 46cm mower is heavier to push and store, and on a small or awkwardly shaped lawn its width simply gets in the way around borders and beds. Match the deck to the space, not to the budget.
Where Ryobi sits against rival brands
It helps to know what you are choosing between. Ego and Stihl sit at the premium end of cordless, with higher-voltage 36V to 56V systems, more torque and a price to match, and they tend to win head-to-head tests on raw power and runtime. Bosch and Flymo aim at the same small to medium gardens as Ryobi but lock you into their own batteries. Makita and DeWalt, like Ryobi, build around a shared battery platform, so the deciding factor is often simply which brand’s other tools you already own or plan to buy.
Ryobi’s pitch is value and breadth rather than top-tier power. You give up a little of the brute force an Ego delivers in long, wet grass, but you gain access to the largest single-battery tool family on the market and keep your outlay down by sharing packs across everything. For a small or medium lawn cut on a regular schedule, that trade is an easy one to make. For a large lawn of rough, fast-growing grass, a higher-voltage brand or a petrol mower may still serve you better, and there is no shame in matching the tool to the demand. Ryobi rewards the gardener who values a tidy shed of compatible tools over the last few percent of cutting power.
What to check before you buy, and the mistakes to avoid
First, confirm whether the price you are looking at includes a battery and charger. The same mower can appear far cheaper because it is the bare tool, and the saving vanishes once you add a 4.0Ah pack and a charger, which together can cost 80 to 130 pounds (about 100 to 165 dollars). Only the tool-only price is a bargain if you already own ONE+ batteries.
Second, be realistic about runtime. Walk out and time how long your current mowing takes, then size the battery to beat that with a margin, or buy a spare. Nothing sours a cordless mower faster than running flat with a third of the lawn left and a forty minute wait to recharge. A rapid charger, rather than the basic unit, shortens that wait considerably and is worth adding if you cannot stretch to a second battery.
Third, look after the things that limit any cordless mower. Keep the blade sharp, because a brushless motor will happily drive a blunt blade that tears rather than cuts, masking the problem until the lawn shows ragged brown tips. Clear the grass box and the underside of the deck after each mow so caked clippings do not choke airflow and shorten runtime. Store the batteries indoors and avoid leaving them flat for months over winter, as deep discharge and cold both shorten a lithium pack’s life. Do these few things and a Ryobi mower will give years of quiet, fume-free cutting, with the bonus that the same battery starts your strimmer, blower and hedge trimmer the moment you snap it across. For a wider view of the cordless market, our battery versus petrol comparison sets out where battery mowers win and where they still fall short.
