The 6 Best Corded String Trimmers of 2026

Six and a half amps is as much motor as this group offers, and the BESTA510 puts it where it counts. We aimed it at the stuff a mower can't reach — knee-high weeds along a fence line, saplings pushing up through gravel — and it cut them down without the bogging that the smaller trimmers here do in the same growth. If your trimming is less lawn care than land clearing, start here.

The trade is the head. Automatic feed is meant to top up the line without bumping, and when it works it's lovely; when it doesn't, the line spools out longer than it should, the motor drags, and you're opening the housing to pull a length out by hand. Winding the spool tight and stopping before it looks full makes a real difference. Do that and the feed settles down; skip it and you'll spend the session fiddling.

At 6.3 pounds this is the heaviest trimmer on the page, and twenty minutes over a ditch bank is where you feel it. The adjustable handle and height positions help more than they sound like they would, and the cord retention clip is the detail we ended up grateful for — the extension cord stays connected when you round a corner, which is half of what makes a corded tool annoying.

Nothing about the BESTA510 is delicate. Fit a second spool, keep the guard on, and it will walk into a blackberry patch that the smaller trimmers here back away from.

Fifteen inches is the widest swath here, and on a long run of open lawn that's the number that matters. One pass where the 12- and 13-inch trimmers need two, fewer overlaps, less walking — this is the trimmer for someone with a real yard rather than a postage stamp of one. The 5.5-amp motor turns at 7,500 rpm, the highest listed head speed in the group.

The 90-degree pivoting head is the feature we underestimated. Tilt it down and you can cut the face of a bank or a curb without rolling the whole tool onto its side, which saves your wrists on sloped ground; tilt it up and it reaches under a hedge. The telescoping shaft runs long enough for a tall user, and it collapses for a shorter one instead of forcing a bent-over stance.

What holds it back is the line. Two strands and dual auto feed sound like twice the cutting, and in practice they tangle and bind in the housing more often than the single-line machines here. A better grade of line helps, and so does a careful, not-too-full spool; even so, expect to open the head more often than you want to. The motor and the swath are why it earns a place — the head is what you have to be patient with.

One detail we ended up fond of: the flower guard. A small plastic hoop clips over the cutting head and holds the line off stems, fence posts, and the mulch line, so you can trim right up to a planting bed without scalping it. It's the kind of thing you don't know you want until you've nicked a rosebush.

Read the listing closely and you'll catch it: this is the trimmer, a prewound 0.065-inch spool, and a guard — no extension cord. That isn't a reason to skip it, but it is a reason to put an outdoor-rated cord in the same order, because a 12-inch trimmer with nothing to plug into is a very quiet afternoon.

What we appreciate is how little there is to think about. A 12-inch cut and a 3.5-amp motor won't clear a hayfield, but they will edge a driveway, tidy the strip between the sidewalk and the curb, and get in under the shrubs where the wide heads can't follow. Turn-to-edge is a twist of the collar rather than a tool change, and the wire edge guide traces a curb line without wandering off it.

It carries easily in one hand, which matters more than the spec sheet suggests when the other hand is managing a cord. Nothing about the machine fights you: the trigger is comfortable to hold, assembly is quick, and the head sits where you expect it to when you turn the tool over to edge.

The hook molded into the housing is the detail that sold us on storage. It hangs on CRAFTSMAN's VERSATRACK rail or any garage hook, so a trimmer this small doesn't have to lean in a corner and fall over every time the door opens.

The cheapest trimmer here is also one of the easiest to live with, which is not the usual order of things. A 4-amp motor, a 13-inch cut, and a 2.7-kilogram body — about six pounds — handle the edges of a normal suburban lot without asking much of you. Assembly takes a few minutes with the manual open, and the built-in auxiliary handle adjusts far enough that the tool doesn't fight your grip.

Four amps is the smallest motor in the group, and you feel it when the grass gets ahead of you: in lawn that's been mowed on schedule it's clean work, and in a wet spring growth spurt you slow down and take a second pass. Buy it as a first trimmer, a second one for the front walk, or the tool you leave at a rental, and the arithmetic holds up better than it has any right to.

CRAFTSMAN's answer to the auto-feed problem is to take the automation out. A push button on the handle releases 0.065-inch line when you press it, and nothing advances when you don't — no over-feeding, no motor drag, no opening the housing to untangle a bird's nest. That direct control is the whole reason to consider this one, and it's the version of line management we trust most on this page.

The rest of the machine is standard-issue good. Six and a half amps is the most power here alongside the BESTA510, the 14-inch swath matches it, and the shaft adjusts for height so a tall user isn't bent double. At 5.7 pounds it splits the difference between the light 12- and 13-inch machines and the heavier BESTA510.

Where we hesitate is the price. This is the most expensive trimmer in the group by a clear margin, and the money doesn't buy a bigger motor or a wider cut than the BESTA510 — it buys the push button, the adjustable shaft, and a different color housing. That's a fair trade if the feed mechanism is what ruined your last trimmer, and for a lot of people it was.

Press it once in ordinary grass and you get a short, predictable length of line. Press it a few times in the middle of tall weeds because nothing seems to be cutting, and you've handed yourself more line than the job needs — the button does exactly what you tell it. Control is what you pay for here, and control is what you have to exercise.