BOSCHElectric Leaf Blower and Vacuum UniversalGardenTidy 3000 (3000 W, collection bag 50 l,variable speed,for blowing, vacuuming shredding leaves, Weight: 4.7 kg, in carton packaging)

The media could not be loaded. This is a purchase that will be kept at my folks and ill be using it in the garden and on the drive for them, they have a tonne of seeds, leaves and all sorts of garden debris which annually cascades from the air onto the floor so requires a twice yearly clean up. I picked the Bosch product over a multitude of alternates based on what seem to be genuine reviews, it is dual function, it looks well built in the product pictures unlike some of the competitors, it has a variable speed and of course because its Bosch and i have never been let down by any Bosch products in the past.The Good* The unit comes in a fairly small box, to unpack, read the instructions and put together took me in total less than ten minutes. First impressions are that it is well built, the plastic is sturdy, i would imagine it would survive several drops to the floor, lots of scuffing, dust and rubbish with no issues. I did look at alternates and i wasn't confident in the build quality, this feels very robust.The bag that comes with the unit is similar to Cordura, not quite as thick but again having read reviews of other products bags seem to be a common failing point so this is important to me.* As said putting together is very simple and took less than ten minutes to figure out. There are two setups, one for Vac one for Blow. The switch between the two is made by unscrewing a reasonable sized nut on the bottom of the unit, its easy to grip and takes less than 30 seconds, swapping the tubes and refitting. Very simple.* The cable is another plus, i always wonder with wired garden equipment how likely is the wire to become punctured or torn into by a branch or becoming stuck on brick or concrete. In this instance not likely at all, i wouldn't want to make a ropes swing out of it but its built to last!* Whilst it is certainly robust it doesn't feel overly heavy as i had feared, i used it initially for two hours and didn't feel fatigued, it comes with a well padded shoulder strap which i used for vacuum however i didn't feel the need to use when blowing, the attachment for blowing is much lighter.* Switch on is super simple, there is one nob to control and it works very much the same as a light dimmer switch, you turn it on and it is already at the lowest setting, to increase the power you simply continue to turn till you reach the desired setting.* Noise level is commensurate to the power setting, at low power i found it to be very quiet, i did think i would need ear defenders but that wasn't the case, its a lot like using a slightly high powered standard house vac outside. Its not going to overly disturb the neighborhood!* I was initially a little concerned about the power, it appears to have a less powerful motor than some competing products, i needn't have worried. My first job was to clear a half built driveway of tree debris which was mixed among rocks, gravel and hardcore. You can see on the video that even on low setting it briskly moves along anything loose, when you ramp up the power it almost sends tennis ball lumps of concrete into the air, it is powerful!I would say based on the power that if you are going to vac leaves and debris then you may well be better off blowing into a pile to start if the ground beneath has many small stones or loose material so as not to suck everything up.* As you can see from the before and after pictures it did a very decent job of getting general debris up off the floor so we can start to build the drive way again, oh joy!I would caution that it will pick up small stones if you are not careful, i actually sucked up a rubble sack which quickly clogged the machine. I simply switch off as soon as it entered, unplugged the unit, removed the vac attachment as i would if changing to blow and removed it, it had become a little shredded but no damage was done to the unit as per pictures.Unlike a lot of competitors this has a robust steel shredder/fan inside. It is thick steel and i doubt it will break easily, the stones that i did mistakenly pick up simply went through and into the bag very quickly.* The collection bag is very good, easy to clip to the unit, tough and durable material, empties using a zip very easily into the bin.* I have included a couple of before and after pictures of the jobs undertaken straight out of the box.The could be better -* A minor one but both the vacuum and the blowing attachment would i feel benefit from having a narrower attachment to go onto the end so as to focus the suction or the blowing. Its a minor quibble, it certainly isnt the widest aperture and i dont imagine ill be losing a foot into it anytime soon but if i had one thing to say could improve this that would be it.Overall i expect this will last a good few years, my current Bosch lawn mower is over six years old, i have had Bosch power tools and also hand tools, all are reliable and well built, this comes with an extended three year warranty so if you do pick one up be sure to register it with the Bosch main website.For blowing and sucking up leaves and general debris this is a very good purchase, its easy to assemble, easy to operate, not overly heavy and certainly not cumbersome. The variable power is a bonus, the noise level can be kept relatively low, it has a 3 year guarantee and its very green in colour, who wants to wander around the garden with a huge piece of orange plastic strapped to their torso!Highly recommended.Five Stars.

The product itself is brilliant. The instruction guide could have been clearer and would have given 5 stars if so. Used first time on our large garden and it’s sucked up all the leaves including pine needles which is a huge bonus for us. Not tried the leaf blower yet but I will assume that is equally as good. The power button is simple and easy to switch between how much pressure you need with the a simple turn of the switch. It is a robust tool but I’m a female and didn’t find it too heavy to carry. The shoulder strap is useful, the handle position is adjustable to what suits you. The bag capacity is fairly large for collecting your leaves. The leaves are shredded automatically when using. Long suction tube which actually reaches the ground! It’s in 3 connecting parts when you assemble it. The disconnection of the suction head with bag is really easy when needing to empty your collected rubbish into your garden bin. All in all this is the best one I’ve ever bought. Really pleased. Will make life so much simpler.We chose the corded version as we have a large garden. Have found in the past that cordless ones don’t power up / hold enough charge for extended use. It takes more than 20 minutes to do all of our garden and have found that our Ryobi chargeable only lasts for 20 minutes before it needs recharging. Hope that helps.

I bought this to replace an old one that no longer worked efficiently. As a first test it is much more efficient at both blowing and sucking.Like many others the assembly from the pictures was not the easiest thing to do and I am a retired mechanical engineer! The diagrams in the user manual were a bit clearer. However after a bit of part inspection and picture studying I had cracked it in around 15 minutes to assemble it for both operations. The blower version was very easy - just fit the impeller cover and nozzle. But the suction version was the more difficult particularly as the suction tube was a very tight fit to assemble and the 3 sections had to be rotated precisely before pushing together to lock into place.This vacuum is a lot more powerful than my old one and will suck up leaves and small twigs from a wet hard surface, grass or artificial grass. It even made a reasonable effort of picking up the odd acorns on maximum suction, though the larger ones needed some enticing to not fall out again ( by pointing the tube upwards after it had picked up the acorn so gravity helped it reach the impeller and bag). However if there are a lot, like we have, it would be better to blow into a pile and manually scoop them up to put them in a bin. I did not find it trying to pick up gravel (10 - 20 mm) even on maximum which is a good thing.Emptying the bag is not as easy as implied - you either need to hold the whole machine over the receptacle (in my case it was a green waste wheelie bin) while opening the zip or remove the suction tube and bag assembly from the motor housing. Probably easier into a compost bin where you don’t have to lift the machine so high. Wet leaves do make a mess of the impeller and where the shredded leaves hit the bag side so cleaning after use is definitely advisable - I found an old washing up brush quite useful for this.As a blower, it is very powerful and will easily move most rubbish into a pile. Here the variable speed is very useful to control the leaves and not scatter the pile. At the more powerful blower speeds it would scatter the gravel, so speed control was necessary.The weight as a vacuum is not excessive at 7 kg but is better using the shoulder strap. It is considerably lighter in blower mode and I found it easier to sweep from side to side without using the strap. However the gyroscopic effect from the spinning motor when moving it side to side is more noticeable without the strapNB. It is always advisable to disconnect from the mains before working on the machine but as a safety device if the screw holding the impeller cover / suction tube assembly is loosened, the motor will stop or not start.I have 2 annoyances:Firstly it would be better to have a separate trigger for on / off as it is not easy to stop the motor in a hurry ( like when it tried to suck up the chair cover ).Secondly I used to find it very useful to be able to switch between suck and blow to get leaves away from a difficult position or off the table or moving stubborn wet leaves before sucking them up. That is not possible with this one when it takes a few minutes to reconfigure for each operation. However it does make each operation more efficient in its function.If my opinions change with more use I will post a revised review.