Ryobi RPP720 Electric Pole Pruner

Trimming bushes and hedges is simple. Lightweight, easy to use and cost effective product.

I have been looking for an electric pruner for some time as the manual one I have is not suitable for thicker branches. I decided I needed a mains electric or petrol driven model. Rechargeable batteries seem not to last through a cold winter in the tool shed. I looked at 3 models in a local DIY centre, and chose the Ryobi. Not the dearest, but not the cheapest. A brand name I was familiar with. Took the box home. Unpacked it. Read the multilingual instruction book. Worked out that there were FOUR black rubber packing pieces to remove. Assembled 1 of the 2 telescopic joints. The other would not fit at all. After 3 hours struggle took it back to the store and asked for help. Their After Sales Serviceman struggled for an hour, using more force than I dared. He filed, scraped, pushed, eventually getting the parts to fit. Even so it does not compact down to the size shown in the photos on the box. I have used it successfully and am happy with it so far. Rain has stopped any further play. I wish I had bought a pre-assembled model, it would have saved 48 miles car travel and a lot of stress.

Ryobi need to look at this problem. Why not pre-assemble the pole fully at manufacture? It would be easier for the purchaser to assemble the head if there is a need for some customer work.

Full marks for the manual. 9/10 for the eco-friendly packaging; would have been better if the box could open along its length and not just at the ends.

I bought this as a replacement for a manual pole tree lopper. Instructions for assembly were not good but as long as you take the 2 black cable protectors off first (they are labelled) it all fits together quite easily. Once assembled the 3 parts slide within each other to extend the pole length, but there appears to be no way to disassemble the pole to make it shorter for carrying in the boot of a car. The very small bottle of chain oil supplied only fills the oil reservoir once, so if you're planning on doing a lot of cutting you'll need to buy a large bottle as the oil is used up quite quickly. Pity Ryobi don't supply a 1 litre bottle to start with.

The pole is made of fibreglass but still heavy, although easy enough to extend, and it comes with a shoulder strap that spreads the weight well enough. However, the fact that the motor and cutter bar are unavoidably mounted on top of the pole tend to make it unweildy to handle at full extension. It extends to about 2.8m, so by holding it up at arms' length you can easily reach branches at least 3m up. I don't recommend climbing on a ladder to reach any higher!

The 200mm cutting bar is angled which means that once resting on top of a branch the weight of the pole bears down on the branch being cut. This means that branches are cut easily and quickly. The 720w motor is extremely powerful.

The electic supply cable runs down inside the pole so there's nothing to get tangled up in branches as you cut (unlike my manual lopper)and its 8m length allows you to to get any extension lead adapter well away from your feet.

The only minor difficulty I encountered is the distance between the electric on-switch on the handle and the safety latch at its other end - both have to be depressed to get the motor to work and if you have small hands it can be a stretch. Do remember to wear safety goggles as minimum protection against falling debris.

This is a good, powerful and well-made machine and is a bargain considering that a good manual pole lopper costs just as much and is very, very labour intensive. Highly recommended.