YardForce 120vRX Lithium-Ion 22″ Self-Propelled 3-in-1 Mower: Product Review
A high-quality cordless mower that will cut a ½ acre lawn on just one charge.
The Yard Force 120vRX Lithium-Ion 22″ Cordless Lawn Mower is a self-propelled mower powered by a 120V Li-ion battery. I’m not a stranger to Yard Force products.
I liked both of those products so much that I jumped at the chance to try out their new battery-powered mower.
SPECIFICATIONS
The Yard Force mower in its natural habitat.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
When I was a kid, a microwave oven-sized box fell off the back of a pickup truck driving several yards in front of us. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. The box bounced, went airborne, and tumbled several times before it settled on the side of the road just as my dad swerved and regained control of our copper-colored 1972 Pontiac Catalina station wagon.
Anyway, the Yard Force box in my driveway arrived in about the same condition as that box I saw bouncing out of the pickup truck 45 years before. When I tried to move the box, I learned why: the thing was heavy. Perhaps a few of the folks who moved it rolled it end-over-end for exercise.
The box absorbed what looked to be a severe beating so the mower didn’t have to
I mention the condition of the box not to rip on the delivery but to praise how the unit was packed and insulated against shock. The mower arrived safe and sound even if the box looked like a spent piñata.
Inside, the unit sat nestled in double-walled cardboard
SETTING IT UP
Before reading the Operator’s Manual, I charged both batteries. While the box included 2 batteries and only 1 charger, I had an additional charger from having tested the Yard Force 120vRX lithium ion battery blower. Bonus!
If you’ve ever used a lithium-ion battery and charger before, you know the drill. The charger plugs into a standard wall outlet. You can even mount the charger on a wall to get it up and out of the way. The battery then slides on the rails of the charger until it clicks into place.
When both the RED and GREEN light remain on, the battery is fully charged. Be warned that a fan in your battery charger engages while the battery charges. This is normal.
One of my two Yard Force chargers in action.
I remember buying a radio-controlled 4×4 toy several years ago. It came with rechargeable batteries. And I remember that those batteries took what seemed like hours to charge…and minutes to discharge.
Fortunately, things have changed with the new generation of lithium-ion batteries like those used by Yard Force. Both batteries were completely charged in less than 25 minutes. Impressive.
While the batteries charged, I looked at the heavy object in front of me and wondered how I would dead-lift the unit from the snug box. Fortunately, down below the grass clipping bag and side-discharge chute sat the owner’s manual. And even more surprising is that I sat down and read it. That’s where I found my answer. “Open carton completely by cutting each corner [of the box] from top to bottom.”
Whew! That saved me a trip to the chiropractor.
Cut the sides of the boxes to easily remove the mower and all contents.
After removing the bag, side-discharge chute, owner’s manual, batteries, and charger, I straightened and fastened the handle into position.
After removing the protective cardboard from around the fasteners, adjust the handle into an upright position.
In the unlocked position, the fasteners allow you to fold the handle to minimize floor space for storage in the off seasons.
The handle can be adjusted in three different positions to accommodate a variety of heights and arm lengths.
You can adjust the handle into 3 positions. For my height and arm length, I found the middle notch perfect. Simply insert the pin into the notch to try out different positions. Once you find what feels most comfortable, lock the fasteners in place.
The handle fastener in the unlocked position.
I loved the fact that there were no screws or wrenches to mess with. Locking the handle in place can be done with one hand.
Securing the fasteners on each side of the handle locks it into place.
Grass Clipping Options
Next, you have a couple of options to pick from when it comes to what happens with your grass clippings: you can mulch them, use the side-discharge to blow them out to the right of the mower, or you can bag them. Let me tick through those setup options for each so you get a feel for how easy it is to switch between options.
Raise the rear chute to insert or remove the mulch attachment or to attach the grass catcher
Mulch Option
The unit comes with the hard, molded plastic mulch plug attachment inserted. That means that if you wish to mulch your grass clippings, you don’t have to do anything.
When the hard plastic plug is slid into place, your mower becomes a powerful mulcher.
Side Discharge Option
Setting up the side-discharge option requires three easy steps. First, remove the hard plastic mulch plug. Second, lift up the side-discharge cover. Third, hook the hard plastic discharge chute under the metal pins that are attached to the mowing deck. You’re done!
Lift the side discharge cover and hook the chute over the attached metal pins.
Grass Bag
Setting up the grass bag to collect clippings is just as simple. First, lift up the rear safety flap and remove the hard plastic mulch plug (if it’s inserted) from the rear of the unit. Second, lift up the side-discharge cover and remove the side-discharge chute (if attached). Finally, align the metal hooks on the grass bag with the attached metal pins under the rear safety flap and release over the slots. That’s it. You are ready to mow 18.5 gallons worth of grass clippings before emptying the bag.
To attach the rear grass bag, lift up the rear safety flap and hook the metal bag pins on the attached metal slots.
SAFETY (FOR YOU AND THE UNIT)
As always, you should wear safety glasses (like these from Wiley-X), hearing protection, and close-toed shoes when operating any sort of power equipment. An errant pinecone or sugar gum ball can put out an eye or leave a dent in your body. On that note, taking the time to pick up fallen sticks, branches, and similar objects can provide you with extra protection from injury while also keeping the unit from a nicked or damaged blade.
Once both batteries are charged, slide them into the battery slots on the top of the mower. Listen for the click to know that you have them securely in place.
Align the grooves in the battery with the corresponding grooves inside the battery slots and click into place.
Next, set the cutting height adjustment that suits your tastes. I selected 3” to test how I liked the height of the grass. Like a haircut, you can always take off more, but you can’t put it back once it’s gone.
I experimented with the various cutting heights. At 1.5”, I scalped my lawn…not exactly the look I was going for. Raising the unit up to 4”, the unit passed over without reaching the top of my grass. I liked the lever because it’s very easy to use and find the right height for your lawn.
Unlike some other mowers on which you have to grab the deck and pull upward to get the height adjustment lever to actually raise the deck, the deck on the Yard Force 120vRX Lithium-Ion 22” Cordless Lawn Mower raises simply by moving the lever.
See our article on Lawn Care Tips From The Pros
Cutting height adjustments allow you to cut as low as 1 inch all the way up to 4 inches.
Before attempting to start the motor, let me mention an extra safety feature on the mower. Inside the battery slots is a Safety Key. To prevent unauthorized use of your mower, remove the key. It won’t start or run without it. I wish one of my kids would make an “unauthorized” use of my mower to cut our grass. Sadly, I believe this is one feature I don’t need.
The mower won’t start without the key inserted, a pretty nice feature to have if you have young, curious kids.
Finally, starting the motor is utter simplicity. On the right side of the handle you’ll find two buttons: a power button and an orange safety button.
Hold in the POWER button until it turns green.
Once the power light turns green, press and hold the large orange button located directly below the POWER button. Now squeeze the blade STOP/START lever (the safety bar) towards the handle until the motor engages.
While holding down the orange safety button lock, squeeze the blade STOP/START lever towards the handle.
Once it starts, release the orange safety button. As long as you hold in the blade STOP/START lever, the blades will spin and you’re ready to cut!
To engage the self-propelled drive, hold in the self-propelled lever switch.
To engage self-propelled mode, hold in the self-propelled switch lever that sits at the back of the handle
Finally, you can adjust the speed of the self-propelled drive at any time by sliding the self-propelled speed adjustment lever on your left on the handle up or down. According to the specs, the self-propelled mode has 5 speeds; the top speed claims to move the mower 2.5 mph.
In self-propelled mode, the mower has 5 speeds, allowing you to go as slowly or quickly as you desire
BUT CAN THE YARDFORCE Mower CUT?
So you can get an idea of what my yard is like, let me describe the size and shape of my yard. I mow about ½ acre every week, more in the late spring and early summer when the rain makes it grow like bamboo. In that ½ acre, I have a couple of large straight flats and more than a few curved landscaped and treed areas that look like kidney beans.
Second, I should say a word about my grass. In the case of my yard, grass refers to anything green that happens to grow. I have a few feet of fescue that usually burns out by early May. The rest is an assortment of crabgrass, Bermuda grass, clover and various weeds. I’ve decided that making the most out of life does not involve trying to have a perfect Kentucky Blue Grass, manicured lawn. Just to look good for the neighbors, I do a little weed-n-feed once each season, but it’s really just me going through the motions.
I tried all of the 3-in-1 options on the Yard Force mower: mulching, side-discharging, and bagging.
Mulching
Full disclosure: my experience with mulching mowers comes from two units: a 119 hardware store purchase 10 years ago and a 2500 riding mower purchased last year. With that as my experience, I started my test mowing where my lawn looked the tallest and greenest just to see if it could mulch thick grass.
The quality of cut exceeded my expectations. Each pass gave a precision cut, regardless of the type of grass-like greenery it mowed. While some of the thickest areas left a small amount of clippings in its wake, most of the mulch disappeared into the lawn. Nicely done!
Oh, and the Yard Force’s cut proved vastly superior to the results I get with my more costly gas-operated riding mower.
Except for the thickest, longest grass, the mower excelled in mulching, leaving only a couple of patches requiring a second pass
The 8 Best Self-Propelled Lawn Mowers of 2023, Tested and Reviewed
Michelle Ullman is a home decor expert and product reviewer for home and garden products. She has been writing about home decor for over 10 years for publications like BobVila.com and Better Homes Gardens, among others.
Barbara Gillette is a Master Gardener, herbalist, beekeeper, and journalist. She has 30 years of experience propagating and growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, and ornamentals.
Emily Estep is a plant biologist and journalist who has worked for a variety of online news and media outlets, writing about and editing topics including environmental science and houseplants.
If you dream of a lush, green lawn, but dread the maintenance involved in keeping it that way, then a self-propelled lawn mower can make your life easier. These mowers not only power the blades but also power the wheels to make your pushing requirements little more than guiding the machine across the grass.
Brock Ingham, gardener, landscaper, and founder of the website Bigger Garden, says, “The main advantage of a self-propelled mower is that it requires less effort to operate than a push mower. This can be beneficial for people with large lawns or those who have difficulty pushing a mower due to physical limitations. Self-propelled mowers can also provide a more consistent cut, since the speed is controlled by the mower rather than the operator. Overall, a self-propelled lawn mower can make mowing easier and more efficient.”
Henry Bravo, founder and editor-in-chief of SmartGardenHome.com, adds, “Self-propelled lawnmowers are much easier to maneuver around obstacles, and they can handle uneven terrain without a problem. Plus, I can adjust the speed so I can mow quickly or at a slower, more leisurely pace. And I love that I can easily switch between mulching, side discharge, and bagging capabilities.”
We bought and tested several self-propelled mowers, both gas and electric, and evaluated many others based on their power, the size of lawn they can handle, their options for handling grass clippings, their range of cutting heights, the easiness of using the mower, and their overall value.
Best Overall
Earning the top spot in our tests is a battery lawn mower that rivals the power of a gas mower but without the smelly fumes, the oil changes, or the frustrating pull cord. Instead, this self-propelled mower from EGO has a 56-volt, 7.5-Ah battery that provides up to 60 minutes of runtime on a single charge; that’s enough to mow most lawns up to a 0.5 acre and more than enough for our small yard. We put the mower to the test in early spring, mowing a lawn just out of winter dormancy that was patchy, wet, and ferny.
Other than attaching the bag, assembling the mower was easy. And a mere press of the button brought it roaring to life. This mower has a 21-inch cutting deck and a one-hand lever that adjusts the cutting heights through six different settings for grass heights of 1.5 to 4 inches. We found it very easy to adjust.
The lawn mower easily handles all common types of lawn grass, including tougher warm-season varieties like Bermudagrass, zoysia, and St. Augustine. A few buyers have complained that it struggles to lift overly tall grass high enough for an even cut. However, we found that it struggled a bit in the wet grass as well, becoming stuck at one point in a ferny patch. Aside from that, it delivers a precise and crisp cut that is sure to impress.
The speed of the mower is variable, so you can set it to match your stride from a leisurely 0.9 mph up to a brisk 3.1 mph. As this was our first time using a self-propelled mower, there was a bit of a learning curve. At first, it felt like the mower was pulling us along. However, we soon got the hang of it and appreciated the ease of adjusting the mower’s speed. We also liked the adjustable handle, which made it more comfortable to mow.
We found that the mower was easy to maneuver, even around obstacles or sharp turns. As the self-propelled function does most of the heavy work, this is also a great mower for yards with slopes. At nine inches in diameter, the mower’s wheels are fairly large, and it is rear-wheel drive, which also helps when mowing over rough terrain or hilly areas. You can dispose of the grass clippings in the included 2-bushel bag, discharge them to the side, or mulch them into fine clippings to quickly decompose them into healthful lawn nutrients. This mower even has a LED headlight, so you can mow early in the morning or at dusk to take advantage of mild temperatures.
Most of the mower’s construction is heavy-duty plastic for weather and rust resistance, but that might not be as durable as steel, although we felt it seemed quite sturdy. Once you finish mowing, the handle folds all the way down for easy storage. We really appreciated this feature, as the mower doesn’t take up as much room in the garage. This mower comes with a 56-volt battery and a fast charger that has the battery ready to go in just an hour.
Price at time of publish: 549
Cutting Width: 21 inches | Power Source: Battery | Weight: 62.6 pounds | Grass Discard Options: Bag, mulch, side-discharge
US/North American source for compatible base hardware? #8
As noted in the README, the existing platform is the Yard Force Classic 500 which comes from a Chinese OEM SUMEC Hardware and Tools which itself is a subsidiary of SINOMACH. Their “Brand” page lists G-Force, Yard Force, and PowerG. PowerG looks to be battery powered hand tools, which leaves the G-Force and Yard Force side of things.
The Canadian and US links from the SUMEC page bring you to YardForceUSA.com. They have a Robot Mower product page with two products listed, the RVX4E and RVX4. I can find no mention of these devices being made available for sale anywhere. I’ve emailed the US distributor and will update if I get an answer back. I eventually found an online shop for Yard Force tools in the US but no robot mowers are listed.
The international page for Yard Force lists different models than the NA page, and that includes a model SA500ECO which bears a passing resemblance to the Classic 500 (as well as being suspiciously similarly named). Amazon in the UK shows this model as no longer available and it appears to be an older 2018 device which they possibly are no longer making.
G-Force
This line is harder to pin down. The product page shows a handful of models, but I cannot find any listings for these mowers on sale anywhere. Product videos I’ve found are from 2015, so this might be an older line of devices.
If anyone else has any ideas as how to obtain a suitable mower deck in the US, post here and we can all get to hackin’!
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Yard force lawn mower
YF48vRX 38” 48v Battery-Powered Riding Lawn Mower
Yard Force LMG37A Cordless Lawnmower review
This powerful mower is a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy winner and has a brushless motor, a rear roller for those desirable stripes and a large, easy to empty grass bag. It’s quick to charge, offers a wide range of cutting heights and is simple to fold away at the end of the day. It comes with a three year warranty.
What are the main features of the Yard Force LMG37A cordless lawnmower ?
Awarded a Best Buy for small to medium lawns, the interchangeable battery and charger that come with this mower can be used across all the tools in the Yard Force GR40 cordless range. It was the quickest to charge in our test, taking just 50 minutes and the battery has a run time of 25 minutes, long enough to cut a 400m2 size lawn. The mower has a 37cm cutting width, a rear roller and the choice of seven cutting heights from 25-75mm. The large fabric grass collection bag has a capacity of 40 Litres and the handle double folds over the body of the mower.
This well-built mower feels sturdy and weighty but is still easy to manoeuvre around a lawn. It’s simple to change the height of cut with its single central lever and the wide cutting width means it cuts medium sized lawns quickly. Thanks to its solid build the rear roller gives defined stripes. Assembly, which is mainly attaching the handle to the body of the mower, was a little fiddly and took longer than some others in our test but once built this mower is easy to use and the handle double folds neatly over the mower after use.
Is the Yard Force LMG37A cordless lawnmower easy to store?
A carry handle on the body makes it easier to lift this lawnmower in and out of the shed and for easy storage, the handle is easy folds down. simply flip the clips on the side and it folds flat over the body of the mower. The grass bag also compacts down and can be stored on top of the mower so the final storage footprint of this mower is just the size of the body making it great for those with limited space.
Well thought out with a brushless motor and some helpful features we think this is a great value mower for small to medium mowers. The battery and charger can be used with other tools in the Yard Force range, saving you money if you invest in the future and the two year warranty can be extended to three, simply by registering your mower after purchase.
This review was last updated in August 2022. We apologise if anything has changed in price or availability.
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