I've got a Echo and so far its worked great, but I've only had it for 2 years. It did cut a lot of hedge this year and what really attracted me to it was how light weight it was. I hadn't heard of them before either, but a guy started selling them close by and I noticed the county workers were using them so I tried them. I had a 16 inch saw crap out on me so thats what I got, but if my 20 inch goes on me and I'm thinking it will before too long then I'll be replacing it with an echo too. My 20 inch is a Poland, whichis not ahigh dollarsaw, but its older than me lol