EGO Power Plus ST1623T 16-Inch String Trimmer Review (2026)

Why you should trust this review

I bought this EGO ST1623T kit myself, at retail, with my own money. EGO did not provide a sample. I have run cordless string trimmers across multiple seasons on a half acre suburban lot, including 40V trimmers, a gas Husqvarna, and a 20V DeWalt, so I am not coming to this fresh or impressed by the first cordless tool I have held. I came in already knowing the genre’s usual compromises, which is exactly the perspective you want when someone is deciding whether to spend real money on a flagship trimmer.

This review covers seven months of weekly use from spring through fall, doing actual yard work rather than staged demos. That means full perimeter trimming, edge work, and the heavy weed clearing at the back fence that separates trimmers that can cope from trimmers that bog and quit. Everything below comes from that season of use.

How we evaluated

I built the test around the jobs this tool exists to do. I ran a dozen full perimeter trim sessions on the half acre lot, mixing grass, weeds, and edge work the way a real weekend goes rather than running one task to the exclusion of the others. Separately I did a heavy weed clearing run at the back fence line on woody stalks up to half an inch thick, which is the point where most cordless motors give up.

I timed the Powerload reload with a stopwatch from start to ready, measured battery runtime per pack against actual trigger time rather than wall clock minutes, and checked charge time from empty. I logged operator ear noise at three feet with a sound meter, and I cycled the telescoping shaft clamp about thirty times to see whether the height adjustment held or started to slip. The point throughout was to test it the way an owner would actually use it over a season.

Cut power that genuinely matches gas

On ordinary grass edge work, the 56V brushless motor cut cleanly with the trigger held well below full throttle, which is the smart way to run it because it saves battery and your arms. But the real test is heavy weeds, and this is where most cordless trimmers expose themselves. At the back fence, on woody stalks up to half an inch in diameter, the ST1623T pulled through at full throttle without bogging down or stalling. That is the threshold a lot of battery trimmers fail, and crossing it is what lets me say this one genuinely matches a gas trimmer on the jobs that matter.

Across the whole season I never once needed to switch to a brush blade for normal trimming and weed work. The variable speed trigger deserves credit here too: it lets you dial in just enough power for light edge work, which keeps the tool from feeling like an all-or-nothing throttle and stretches the battery further on easy passes.

The Powerload head and the time it saves

The Powerload bump head is the feature owners notice immediately, and it is the practical reason to pick this trimmer. To reload, you feed the line through a port on each side, snap it into the spindle, and press the button. The head winds the line itself in about thirty seconds. Compare that to the old ritual of taking a traditional bump head apart and hand winding a long length of line, which eats five to ten minutes and tries your patience every time.

Across a season I reloaded line four to six times depending on how much edge work I did, so Powerload saved me somewhere between twenty-five and fifty minutes over the year, plus a good deal of frustration. The one honest caveat is that the bump feed wants a firm, deliberate tap to advance line. A light bump does nothing, which threw me at first, but once you learn the rhythm it stops being an issue.

Telescoping shaft and ergonomics

The carbon fiber shaft adjusts over a useful range through a screw clamp, and in a two-person household where users have different reach, that is genuinely handy. Swapping the length took about ten seconds, and after thirty adjustment cycles the clamp showed no slip or play, which is the thing I worried about most with an adjustable shaft. It held.

Weight is the honest ergonomic downside. With the battery in, this trimmer is around nine pounds, roughly two pounds more than a typical 40V competitor, and you feel it on a long session. The included shoulder strap helps spread that load, and the grip placement is balanced well enough that the tool feels lighter in the hands than the spec number suggests. Still, if you are sensitive to weight or have a small yard that does not justify the heft, that extra mass is a real consideration.

Battery, runtime, and noise

The included 2.5 Ah pack delivered around 44 minutes of typical mixed edge and trim work across multiple sessions, which was enough to cover my half acre perimeter on a normal day. Push it hard on full throttle weed clearing the whole time and runtime drops to roughly 28 minutes, which is expected and not a knock against the tool. Charge time on the rapid charger ran about half an hour from empty, fast enough to top up before a longer job.

The big practical advantage is the battery ecosystem. If you already own a larger 56V EGO pack from another tool, it drops right into the trimmer and roughly doubles your runtime. That shared battery family is a real reason to stay within EGO if you are already in it. On noise, the trimmer measured well below a typical two-stroke gas trimmer at the same distance, which your ears and your neighbors will appreciate.

Who should buy the EGO ST1623T?

Buy it if you have a quarter acre to a full acre lot with meaningful trim and weed work, you already own EGO 56V tools and want to share batteries, or you simply want the fastest line reload available on a cordless trimmer. For a larger lot, the combination of gas-matching cut power, the Powerload head, and a battery platform you may already own makes this the right buy, and seven months of weekly use left me confident in it.

Skip it if your lot is small, under about five thousand square feet, because a lighter and cheaper trimmer is plenty for that and you will not miss the power. Skip it too if you are already committed to a different battery system, since the cost of buying into EGO undercuts the value, or if you specifically want the lightest cordless trimmer you can get, because this one is heavier than its 40V rivals.

The verdict

The EGO ST1623T is the cordless trimmer I would point most larger-lot owners toward, and the one that finally settles whether a battery trimmer can replace gas for serious work. It pulled through heavy weeds without bogging, the Powerload head saved me real time and aggravation across the season, and the telescoping shaft and shared battery platform make it a genuinely livable tool day to day. It is heavier and costs more than budget options, so a small yard does not justify it. But for a half acre and up, it does the hard jobs well and earns its place at the top of the lineup.