Greenworks shook up the battery-powered OPE market with its 25-inch commercial mower a while back. We took the Greenworks Pro 60V 25-inch self-propelled lawn mower designed for homeowners out to see how it stacks up against the best battery-powered mowers we’ve tested.
Pros
- Excellent power with Turbo mode for tough patches
- Very good cut quality
- Dual active battery ports with automatic switching
- 23.75-inch cutting swath
- Easy control system
- Simple handle release for height adjustment and vertical storage
Cons
- We’d like to have a little bit slower speed on the low end when cutting thick patches
- You need to roll the mower forward a touch to disengage the drive wheels when backing up
- No side/rear discharge option
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Greenworks Pro 60V 25-Inch Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Design
If you’ve seen the Commercial 82V version of this mower, you’ll immediately see the resemblance. And if you’re familiar with the latest generation of their 21-inch 60V self-propelled mower, you’ll notice several things have come over from it as well.
Get a Grip
Starting at the top, this is the same control system and handle design that the 21-inch model uses, including the Turbo button. The handles dip away from the center at a comfortable angle and the foam grip adds to your hands’ comfort level.
There’s an LED level indicator for the two battery ports that light up when you hit the power button, self-propel bar, or blade bar.
Control Yourself
Kicking the mower into gear is pretty standard. Press the power button and pull the blade bar to get them up to speed. You can also opt to just use the self-propel drive when you need to get from point A to point B without pulling the blade bar first.
What’s interesting is that you can reverse the process, too. Pull the blade or self-propel bar first and hit the power button second and the mower still comes to life. I like that. There’s no trying to remember which order you have to go in—just hit what you need to and go.
The speed adjustment is front and center. Greenworks does a nice job of keeping the slider stiff enough that you don’t knock it to a different level if you accidentally touch it or go over a bump.
The self-propel drive has a pretty solid speed range. There’s plenty of top-end speed to keep up with my 6-foot, 2-inch frame. I’d actually like the low end to go a little lower. It’s fine most of the time. But when the grass is really tall and thick, I like to slow things down even more.
Energy Reserves
Lift up the hood and we find two battery ports. You only need one pack to run the mower. The mower automatically switches over when the first battery is used up.
Height Adjustments
Moving around to the deck, you adjust the height with a single-point adjustment. With the larger design and heavier weight that comes with it, it would have been understandable to move to a 2- or 4-point system. Instead, the design team kept it simpler for you.
On gas mowers, a single point adjustment can lead to a loss of rigidity through the frame and wear down the connection points of the system before the end of the mower’s service life. Weighing in around 86 pounds, this mower is right on the edge but we’re not seeing anything that concerns us about its ability to hold up over time so far.
Twin Blades
Under the 25-inch steel deck, the Greenworks Pro 60V 25-inch self-propelled lawn mower uses twin 12.5” blades to cover a true 23.75-inch cutting swath. Each blade is smaller and lower mass than any of the single blades other battery mowers use, so they’re able to power them on the popular 60V platform.
The blades counter-rotate and combine with the deck design to direct clipping toward the bag. It’s an effective system that does a solid job.
If you’re willing to give up a little runtime for better lift and cut quality, Greenworks includes a high-lift set of blades in the kit.
Greenworks Pro 60V 25-Inch Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Performance
One of the things I really wanted to see was how much power this mower has with Greenworks branding the update to have “Ultra Power”. The blades may have less mass but cutting nearly 24 inches at a time is still a tough task. After all, none of the other major players have this large of a deck size.
After cutting an area of grass to the mower’s max, I dropped the deck all the way down to see if it would cut. The idea is to find where its minimum effective cutting height is, and we normally have to raise the deck a notch or two. Surprise, surprise—Greenworks is able to cut at its 1 3/8-inch minimum pretty easily.
When you get into those tougher cutting situations, you can hear the brushless motor calling on more power to drive those blade speeds. That kind of smart response gives you more power when you need it and conserves runtime when you don’t. Of course, with this Gen-2 update, you can hit the Turbo button when the standard mode has trouble.
The caveat is that it can’t mulch very well when it has that much grass to chop and very little deck clearance to drop it. If you’re in that kind of cutting situation, plan on bagging it.
Greenworks Pro 60V 25-Inch Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Cut Quality
If you’re like us and prefer mulching, having double the blades and double the cutting edges helps chop grass into finer bits than we see on many other electric mowers.
You don’t get a side discharge option with this model. That’s not a surprise to us. It gives the deck less interruption on its airflow where you’d normally place the chute.
The cut evenness is pretty solid on regular cuts. With two blades, there’s the possibility of leaving a mow-hawk behind in the center. However, Greenworks’ overlapping blades and their speed don’t leave anything behind.
It also looks like they have the lift dialed in well, pulling the grass up to cut it at the same height and directing it to the bag effectively. It gets even better with the high lift blades.
Greenworks Pro 60V 25-Inch Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Runtime and Cutting Area
So that leads us to the question of how much runtime we get. With battery tools, more power usually means less runtime. We charged up the batteries that came in the kit—a pair of 4Ah Ultra Power packs. That’s a bit better than the 2Ah/4Ah combination that came with the last model.
We cut the entire lawn at 5 inches using our Cub Cadet Pro Z 560 and then ran the Greenworks mower at 3-inch to see how long it would run on a maintenance cut. The majority of our cutting was in Bahia with a smaller section of St. Augustine requiring light to medium cutting efforts.
The last version got 26 and a half minutes, but by limiting the highest power to a separate mode, we beat that with just the first battery. One battery switched over at 33 minutes and the second battery finally gave in after 1 hour, 9 minutes. That’s a massive improvement!
We didn’t have to jump into Turbo mode at all during our cutting. If you need to, you’ll drop your runtime, so use it selectively to get the most out of your batteries.
With the batteries that come in the kit, we’d say the Greenworks Pro 60V 25-inch self-propelled lawn mower is a great option for mowing up to a 1/2-acre on a regular basis.
Additional Field Notes
Vertical Storage
Like many battery-powered mowers, you can fold the handle forward on this model and store it vertically. It’s a really easy system, too. Just pull the green tabs up to release and swing the handle forward. They’re the same releases you use to switch between the two handle heights. A handle on the front gives you a simple point to pull it up from.
Push and Pull
We noticed while we were cutting that you can’t instantly roll backward. You need to push the mower forward just a touch to disengage the drive before you can pull it back. It can be a little frustrating when you need to mow into a spot and back out of it.
LEDs Have Arrived
If you’re a low-light mowing kind of guy or gal, you probably noticed the last version of this mower didn’t have LEDs. That’s changed with a new light bar to light up your mowing path.
Greenworks Pro 60V 25-Inch Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Price
You can get this model direct from Greenworkls for $749 with a pair of 4.0Ah batteries and a dual-port charger. Both the mower and the batteries are backed by a 4-year warranty.
When you look at other battery-powered mowers in that price range, Greenworks is one of the most compelling models considering its performance and coverage.
The Bottom Line
We’re impressed with Greenworks’ translation of its commercial battery mower into a residential option and the Gen-2 upgrades are helpful. With two solid self-propelled mowers to choose from, it’s really a matter of deciding which one is better for your lawn: the Greenworks 21-inch or the 25-inch. Thanks to its dual battery ports and wider deck, this model is geared toward larger lawns. Grab the 21-inch if you’re maintaining 1/4-acre or less and go with the 25-inch above that.
Greenworks Pro 60V 25-Inch Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Specifications
- Model: Greenworks 2531502 (MO60L427)
- Power Source: Greenworks 60V battery
- Deck Size: 25 inches
- Deck Materials: Steel
- Cutting Swath: 23.75 inches
- Blade Diameter: 2 x 12.5 inches
- Height Range: 1 3/8 – 4 inches
- Cutting Positions: 7
- Discharge: Mulch or bag
- Warranty: 4 years mower and batteries
- Price: $749
