When I was a teen, I cut the lawns of my church and school during the summer. Back then, everything was gas-powered, and while electric mowers existed, they were corded and low-powered—no match for the many acres we had to cut. It was a fun job, especially at that age, but I hated the fumes and maintenance of the not-so-new mowers we had to use. If I had a mower like the Greenworks 80-volt 22-inch Cordless lawn mower, I would have been a much happier kid.

As Greenworks’ line of walk-behind mowers goes, this one sits near the top. It runs on a powerful 80-volt motor, comes with two 4-amp-hour batteries, and has an adjustable-speed self-propelled drive. It also features a 22-inch steel cutting deck, which breaks from the typical composite decks found on many other cordless lawn mowers. In many ways, this feels a lot like a gas-powered mower but delivers on the promise of battery power—zero emissions, quieter operation, and lower maintenance.

To put this lawnmower through its paces, I cut a one-half-acre property at my brother’s house. He has a healthy lawn that gets quite a bit of sun, so the grass grows quickly. He normally hires a service to cut it once a week or so, so I gave them a week off. There are seven height-adjustment settings on this mower, ranging from 1 to 4 inches, and I chose the third setting because the grass had gotten a tad long after a few days of rainy weather. It’s not listed in the manual, but it was not hard to figure out that each setting represents a half-inch, so my choice was squarely in the middle.

The Greenworks 80-volt mower is simple to operate. Just push and hold the power button, engage the ignition handle on either side at the top, and off you go. The self-propelled drive is activated by handles on either side below, and the speed is easily adjusted with a free thumb. I wondered if I would subconsciously confuse the two handles and accidentally turn the mower off when I meant to disengage the self-propelled drive, but that never happened—it’s pretty intuitive to operate it the correct way.

This mower offers all the typical cutting functions found on most mowers, including mulching, bagging, and side-discharging. Below the deck, it features a two-blade system (with one blade on top of the other) in a slight X-formation that claims to improve mulching capability. I tried this mode out on about half of the backyard, and it worked fairly well. The grass was cut into small clippings, and the only clumping I spotted was on a patch that was longer than most of the yard because it was a different type of grass that had grown longer (my brother has three kids, so there’s not much time to worry about mismatched patches of grass type). It was also a bit damp out from morning dew, which can lead to some clumps.

The bagging mode was typical of most mowers we’ve tested. I had to empty the bag a few times during my cutting session, so the size of the bag didn’t blow me away, but it held all the grass in, so there’s no complaint in that department. What stood out to me was the switchover from bagging to mulching. Instead of a plug that you have to manually insert, a lever on the deck closes a built-in door where the plug would normally go—no more separate plug to mess with or potentially misplace. I’m the guy who would lose that, so I love this feature.

Did I like the cut? Overall, yes. The blades were new, so by default, the first cut is going to look pretty good. I kneeled to eyeball the grass tips, and the cuts were clean and even. The mower claims to auto-sense denser patches of grass and ramp up the blade speed to help cut through it, but if it did that, it was hard to perceive. What I can say is that it never seemed to struggle in thicker spots. And, at the end of the day, my brother thought the results looked better than the service he normally uses. I’m guessing they don’t take as much time and care as I did … at least, that’s what I suggested to him.

The biggest concern for any cordless lawn mower is run time. Once those batteries run out, it will take them at least an hour or more to recharge. That’s why cordless electric mowers aren’t always the best choice for properties over an acre in size, unless you’re opting for a more powerful electric lawn tractor or zero-turn mower.

While an 80-volt system delivers a lot of power to run both the drive and the spinning blade at the same time, the higher voltage doesn’t guarantee it will run for longer, but this mower seems to handle runtime as well as any other in its class. This Greenworks mower claims to cut up to 3/4 of an acre per charge of its two batteries, and I think that’s pretty accurate.

The area I mowed was just under 1/2 of an acre, and by the time I was done, I had two bars left per battery. I could have kept going if I needed to. My only complaint here is that Greenworks only includes a single battery charge instead of a dual charger, which means only one battery can be recharged at a time.

Of course, several things could affect that performance. Had I opted for the fastest self-propelled speed or permanently used the motor’s turbo feature (which spins the blade at the max 3,000 rpm speed), the runtime would decrease. Thankfully, the top speed felt too fast to me—I spent most of my time just under the middle speed—and I only found turbo speed necessary once, for a long and dense patch of grass near the border of my brother’s yard.

If you’ve been using a self-propelled gas mower and don’t want your mowing routine to change much, I think you’ll feel right at home with this Greenworks 80-volt mower. It’s every bit as capable in regard to cutting power, quality, and speed, plus it adds durability with a sturdy steel cutting deck. Other standout features include single-lever height adjustment, a handle that folds forward to save storage space, and a smartly placed front handgrip that helps you lift the mower upright for vertical storage or onto a truck bed. I’ll be honest, teenage me is very jealous.

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