Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Designed obsolescence? I have mixed feelings about this. The trimmer worked great right out of the box. Once. When I went to use it again today, it was Dead On Arrival. As luck would have it the return policy expired yesterday. MORE THAN COINCIDENCE, NSA? However, the repair was fairly simple. The motor compartment at the head of the unit snaps open with gentle nudging. There are two metal shims which connect the battery to the motor. There is no point to point soldering in this low price unit. Continuity relies on physical contact. The chrome nickel alloy means it will be unlikely that you will need to clean the contacts. The weak link is the shim connected to the actuator switch. In this case, the shim was too flat, lacking enough spring to make contact when the switch was moved to the "on" position. To make the repair, I gently opened the plastic motor compartment and removed the motor, exposing the movable 1 cm shim connected to the switch. I used a small penknife to bend the shim into a more curved position to ensure it would make contact with the long metal plate that connects to the battery anode. After confirming continuity with an ohmmeter, everything was dusted and reassembled. While I was at it, I disassembled the blade compartment, cleaned it out and used a single drop of oil to lubricate the metal blades. Success! The trimmer works perfectly again. Total repair time: under five minutes. Cost: zero. See my uploaded picture of disassembled trimmer. So, the caveat is that this is a great trimmer, but it is very cheaply made, and quality control is poor. If you are handy, you can make the repair easily and with no special tools. When it works it is a great 4-5 Star unit. I gave this One Star to make it more likely that people will see this and be able to repair their trimmers if they break.