Talking to my local (relatively, actually 50 miles away) farm shop today about hedge trimmers. They don't do Stihl or Viking, as recommended here previously - in fact he rather rubbished them, saying that since they'd done a 'cheap Chinese' deal, he felt the build quality hadn't been there.
He then took the cover off an Echo, and pointed to the thickness of steel in the blade components, saying that if that was well-made and robust, the gearbox and everthing else back up the drive chain would last well too. TBF, it did look well made.
In two-stroke models, he has Echo HC1500 444mm blade for £228 inc VAT. Echo HC155ES 621mm blade for £298 inc VAT.
In electric: Makita UH4861X with 20 ft cable £99 inc VAT
Battery: Oregon HT255 288 inc VAT
I suspect that the latter two models have not the robustness that he was claiming for the Echo, but I do quite like the idea of an electric.
Any opinions?