Point is, think about how you are going to buy your batteries (cheaper in a kit) and where you will get a charger if not in a kit.

I give it 5 stars because I assume it is a great product, and the review system requires a stars to be selected.

The first thing that you notice about this blower is that it's much smaller than it looks in the photos. It's closer in size to your hand saw than it is to a standard leaf blower.

This has it's advantages and disadvantages. It's easy to set up, just twist the nozzle onto the front and plug the battery in the handle and you're ready to go. If you have a small outdoor job like blowing leaves or twigs off your front porch it works great. But being physically smaller in size than other blowers you don't move nearly the volume of air as a full size blower and sometimes you need to bend over and "push" the debris around with the air stream. The trigger style variable speed switch is great in that it allows you to dust off items that wouldn't survive a more powerful blast. It would be great for jobs like blowing sawdust out of your shop area as you could lightly dust the shelves and then sweep the floors full blast.

Even with an 18 volt battery the Makita doesn't have enough power to do the big jobs or work well on grassy surfaces. Even a large driveway would be a strain as it would require too much bending over and you would probably run out of power before you were done.

This blower is for hard surfaces and small jobs. In this role it is a mini powerhouse. It's build quality is high and it is light weight. It's designed for those "in between" size jobs.

It might even make a good blow dryer for a wet dog.

In summary, do NOT purchase this blower for regular yard work. Buy a full size.

DO purchase this blower for jobs of convenience and you will enjoy it. It is well built and nice to have when you're willing to start a five minute job but not a 20 minute one. :^)

Update: Dec 5, 2002 This morning I used the blower to blow off the powder snow that fell on my vehicle overnight. It took less than a minute and I didn't get my hands snowy just before I had to leave for work. Because you can whip this blower out quickly, there are a lot of different things that you can use it for that you might not think of otherwise.