Before I tell you about the SYLVA 40V Brushless 4in1 Multitool, I just wanted to say that I’ve had various strimmers and hedge trimmers over the years. The most capable was a 52cc 2 stroke multi tool. Great when it worked but it became increasingly temperamental, and I usually had no fuel when I decided it was garden time. It died for good a couple of years ago.
It was replaced with a Makita 36v hedge trimmer (around £150-200 with no batteries) and 18v strimmer (Makita strimmer with battery is around £150), mainly as I already had numerous batteries.
The 36v hedge trimmer is great for the smaller hedges and certainly has decent power. The 18v strimmer……is ok if you have fine grass which needs a light tidying. I foolishly bought a random brand 20v long reach hedge trimmer (circa £120) to try and get to the higher stuff. Full of regrets for that decision, it’s rubbish, might lightly trim a few leaves on a privet hedge.
I will get onto the point now, the point being I seem to have been searching and failing to find something to replace the original, and wasting cash on budget options…..I knew I needed a greater voltage than 18v/20v for more power. I knew the 36v Makita was pretty decent, so anything above that was what I was after.
At this point, enter a new multi-tool. The SYLVA 40V BRUSHLESS 4in1 MULTI TOOL – SYMT4B, with 4Ah battery. 4 in 1 being, strimmer+brushcutter, hedge trimmer and polesaw. First impressions are that it’s a well put together package with minimal assembly required. Just a handle to screw on, the strimmer guard to put into place and your choice of line strimmer or brushcutter blade, basic tools are all that’s required for assembly and they are provided.
The various attachments are easy to connect by hand without tools. It feels very well balanced and not too heavy. If you adjust the shoulder strap you can take a lot of the strain off your arms.
For my first task I decided to strim, as that was closest to where I took it out of the box. I soon discovered it’s rather a feisty beast (that’s a compliment by the way!). By that I mean that it has noticeably far more power than the previous one, and is definitely in a different league.
It’s worth noting though, that there is a variable speed control through the trigger so you can approach with a little finesse if you choose. The edge along the drive was really thick from the previous year, partly due to me not doing it, but mostly due to the old strimmer not being able to cope. This flew through that, so far so good and at this point for me, pretty much worth the purchase price just for its strimming. There is also a brush cutter attachment included, but it’s a bit early in the year to find anything needing a cut just yet.
On that note, the hedge trimming was done with plenty of time to spare before birdies arrived for the year! Onto the hedge trimmer, it has a 390mm blade adjustable to various angles to suit. It doesn’t sound as lively as the strimmer attachment so had me questioning it. But actually, it just calmly and quietly chops away without fuss, which is really what you want. It has 24mm teeth spacing, which allows it to pass comfortably along without getting stuck on the odd thicker section. Everyone will have their own hedge cutting preferences, ours are quite long so I like to set an angle and just walk back and forth, it’s great for keeping it the same height. For most of our hedges of a more normal size it was happy sat on the shoulder strap.
For one of them which is a bit of a monster I found myself needing to lift it up higher to reach, you wouldn’t want to spend all day doing these, but it’s quite happy doing so if you don’t mind holding it!
The pole pruner, is a very short chainsaw, at 180mm. But really, you don’t need a 400mm chainsaw at the end of a pole, good luck with that if you find such a thing! At 180mm it’s more than enough to do a bit of pruning to your fruit trees, or some low branches on these conifers and cherry trees. It just needed the bar and chain put on and some chain oil in the reservoir. I liked the thumb screw (that sounded wrong!) to tighten/loosen the bar, then just a screwdriver to adjust tension to a few mm wiggle! It’s really handy also if you encounter a really thick branch which the hedge trimmer doesn’t like, and zips through these.
What don’t I like? I don’t like where the safety thumb switch is before pressing the trigger, but as that’s my only grumble, I think it says a lot about the product. As a summary, I think the Sylva is a very capable all rounder for a decent sized garden. You could quite happily get away with this as your only handheld garden power tool. With the attachments removed it is very compact for storage, indeed it also has a nice storage bag to keep it all together.
In case you would like to watch the video in action:
We were sent the Sylva multi-tool to review. As always, all opinions are our own.
