Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

1. If you need to limb a tree, where you have full range access to the branches, this is a suitable tool. The gears do give you quite a bit more power to chop large branches provided (and I cannot emphasize this enough) YOU HAVE FULL, UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO THE AREA YOU WANT TO MAKE A CUT. 2. If you have branches down on the ground, this is an excellent tool. I do not have a huge amount of arm muscles so I developed a method to compensate for that. First, I open the handles fully and get a good grip on a branch that is laying on the lawn. Keeping the branch gripped in the jaws of the blades, I lay one of the handles down on the lawn. Then I apply all my pressure with both hands on the handle that is up in the air, using the ground as the brace for the opposing handle. I can cut through any branch I can fit into the blade opening with ease and little or no muscle strain. 3. If you want to selectively take out certain branches within a dense tree THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT TOOL AT ALL. The handles have to open out almost to a 180 degree angle to open the blades enough for a big branch. Even for a smaller branch, the handles need room to open much wider than a traditional, non-geared lopper. This is simply not workable when you're up on a ladder, eyeing one particular watershoot in the middle of the tree that needs to go. The long 32" handles further compound the problem. It's like using an A-bomb to take out one grass hut or using a paint roller to do your toenails. Indeed, bigger is not always better. Furthermore this sucker is HEAVY. I am a fairly burley chick but there is no way I could use this at shoulder height or above for any length of time. If you have the biceps of a lumberjack, this won't be an issue, but for the rest of us, I recommend Fiskars 32 Inch PowerGear UltraBlade Bypass Lopper (8154). . It has slightly different handle grips but similar cutting capabilities and weighs in at almost TWO POUNDS LESS than this model In summation, depending on your needs this is either a great tool or a horrible one. Personally, I think it is a handy SECOND lopper to own but I wouldn't want it to be my only lopper.