I've bought and worn out several brands of weed eaters. Echo was my favorite gasoline powered one. It started the easiest. I'm not familiar with the model numbers, and it's been years since I owned a gas weed eater. Eventually the Echo fuel primer, then the fuel line got all gummed up from the gasoline I was using, and it sat for too long over the winter that I decided it wasn't worth the money to have the Dealer fix it.
I bought a Makita dual battery cordless weed eater off of Amazon that's been amazing. I put two 18 volt batteries on it and I've never had them die on me before I was done weed eating. It's amazing not having to fuel it up, or wear ear plugs to use it.
Three years ago, my brother passed away and I inherited his Kobalt cordless weed eater. I just have one battery for it, and it has sat for at least three years. I charged it up the other day to see if it worked, and I did my entire yard from just that one battery.
Comparing the two, Makita and Kobalt, I'm not sure if the Makita is worth the extra money. They both work great. I have a bunch of Makita cordless tools, a dozen batteries, and it's my go to brand when I need another tool. But if I was buying today, I'd probably save a buck and buy the Kobalt.
We also gave up on gasoline powered leaf blowers. My wife bought a Sun Joe from Amazon because of it's price and reviews. It was on sale for $25. It has two settings. Low and High. When using it on the High setting, it will twist your wrist. It's very impressive how much air it moves!!!! Dealing with a cord is kind of a pain, but not that big of one compared to buying gas, mixing gas, storing gas, and pouring the gas into a leaf blower to get it to run. Being quite so I don't need ear plugs just to blow the pine needles off the porch is also a huge plus. We leave it on the porch and use it several times a week. It's so easy and quite there isn't any excuse not to use it when we're out there.
www.echo-usa.com
