Garden Last updated · owner ratings verified July 2026
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Side by side
| Our pick Husqvarna Husqvarna 350BT Backpack Leaf Blower Better overall $310–380 Check price | Husqvarna Husqvarna 125B Handheld Leaf Blower Gas without the backpack $170–220 Check price | Toro Toro Ultra Electric Blower / Vacuum / Mulcher Better value $80–110 Check price | Toro Toro Power Sweep Electric Leaf Blower 51585 Cheapest useful blower $40–60 Check price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What owners rate it | ||||
| Owner rating | 4.6 / 5 (3,225) | 4.3 / 5 (5,351) | 4.4 / 5 (7,046) | 4.6 / 5 (4,827) |
| Specifications | ||||
| Power source | 50.2 cc gas, 2-cycle | 28 cc gas, 2-cycle | 12 amp corded electric | 7 amp corded electric |
| Air volume (CFM) | 692 CFM | 470 CFM | 410 CFM | Light — sweeping volume only |
| Air speed (MPH) | 180 MPH | 170 MPH | 250 MPH | 160 MPH |
| Format | Backpack | Handheld | Handheld, corded | Handheld, corded |
| Vacuum and mulch | No | No | Yes — vacuum and mulch with metal impeller | No |
| Weight | About 22 lb, carried on the back | About 9.4 lb in the hand | Light, around 8.5 lb | Under 5 lb |
| Noise | Loud — hearing protection required | Loud — hearing protection required | Moderate | Quiet |
| Maintenance | Mixed fuel, spark plug, air filter | Mixed fuel, spark plug, air filter | None beyond bag and cord | None |
| Who it suits | ||||
| Best for | Half an acre and up, wet leaves, long driveways | A quarter to half an acre with no power outlet in reach | Suburban yards where the leaves need bagging, not just moving | Decks, patios, garage floors and grass clippings |
Ratings are aggregated Amazon owner ratings, not our own testing. Figures verified July 2026.
Pros and cons
Husqvarna 350BT Backpack Leaf Blower
- 692 CFM is more than four times what a light corded blower moves, and volume is what shifts wet leaves
- Backpack harness puts the weight on your hips, so an hour of clearing does not wreck your forearm
- X-Torq engine burns cleaner and uses less fuel than older two-strokes of the same displacement
- Serviceable like a piece of equipment rather than an appliance — plugs, filters and fuel lines are all replaceable parts
- Two-stroke fuel has to be mixed correctly, and stale or wrongly mixed fuel is the number one cause of a blower that will not start
- Loud enough that hearing protection is not optional and local noise ordinances may limit when you can use it
- Heavy to lift onto your back, and the harness takes adjusting before it is comfortable
- Gas blowers can no longer be bought new in California, which matters for resale and for replacement
Husqvarna 125B Handheld Leaf Blower
- 470 CFM from a handheld is still roughly three times a light corded blower
- Cruise control holds the throttle so you are not squeezing a trigger for twenty minutes
- Light for a gas machine and genuinely one-handed for short bursts
- Goes anywhere — no cord, no battery, no runtime limit beyond the tank
- Same fuel mixing and same winter storage discipline as the backpack model
- Vibration and noise are far higher than any electric blower here
- Rated below the 350BT by owners, with starting complaints the recurring theme
- Nothing to clean gutters or mulch with — it only blows
Toro Ultra Electric Blower / Vacuum / Mulcher
- 410 CFM at 250 MPH is a serious number for a corded machine and beats plenty of cordless blowers
- Converts to a vacuum with a metal impeller that shreds leaves at a high reduction ratio for bagging or composting
- Starts instantly every time, forever — no fuel, no plug, no winter storage ritual
- Quiet enough to use early on a Saturday without annoying the street
- Tethered — you are managing an extension cord and the cord decides how far you can go
- Needs a heavy-gauge outdoor cord; a thin one drops voltage and the motor loses power
- Vacuum mode fills a bag quickly and the changeover between modes is fiddly
- Nowhere near the Husqvarna backpack on wet, matted leaves
Toro Power Sweep Electric Leaf Blower 51585
- Cheapest machine on this page by a wide margin and one of the best-rated for what it is
- Light enough to use one-handed for as long as the job takes
- Two speeds give you a gentle setting for flower beds and gravel edges
- Nothing to maintain, nothing to store, plugs into any outdoor outlet
- Air volume is a fraction of everything else here — it sweeps, it does not clear
- Wet leaves defeat it entirely
- No vacuum or mulching function
- Corded, with the same extension cord management as the Ultra
Decision factors
What you actually pay
The brands barely overlap on price. Toro's Power Sweep is $40–60 and the Ultra blower-vacuum is $80–110. Husqvarna's handheld 125B is $170–220 and the 350BT backpack is $310–380. You can buy four Toro Ultras for one Husqvarna backpack.
Where the Husqvarna money goes. Into an engine and a harness. The 350BT moves nearly twice the air of the Toro Ultra with no cord behind it, and the backpack format is the reason professionals use this class of machine — the weight sits on your hips instead of your wrist, so you can work for an hour rather than ten minutes. It is also built to be repaired: spark plugs, air filters, fuel lines and carburetor kits are all normal service items.
Where the Toro money goes. Into a motor and an impeller, and nothing else. The Ultra's mulching vacuum is the feature that justifies its price over the Power Sweep, because shredding leaves at a high reduction ratio turns eight bags of leaves into one.
Running costs split completely. A corded Toro costs pennies of electricity and needs nothing else, ever. A Husqvarna needs two-stroke oil and fresh gasoline mixed at the specified ratio, a spark plug every season or two, an air filter, and fuel stabilizer or a drained tank over winter — call it $30–60 a year plus your time. Add hearing protection for the gas machines, and add a proper heavy-gauge outdoor extension cord for the Toros, which is a $30–50 purchase people forget and then blame the blower for.
Which one fits you
- Half an acre or more with mature trees Husqvarna 350BT Volume and no cord are the only two things that matter at that scale, and the harness lets you actually finish the job.
- Suburban lot, and you bag the leaves Toro Ultra Blower / Vacuum / Mulcher The metal impeller shreds leaves down to a fraction of their volume, which turns a trailer load into a few bags.
- Deck, patio and driveway only Toro Power Sweep 51585 Grass clippings and dry leaves on hard surfaces need sweeping, not clearing, and this does it for the price of dinner.
- No outdoor outlet, no interest in a backpack Husqvarna 125B Gas freedom in a handheld, with cruise control so you are not holding a trigger down for the whole session.
If neither is right
- EGO POWER+ Cordless Leaf Blower, 650 CFM The genuine third answer neither brand offers here: near-gas air volume with no cord, no fuel and far less noise. Battery cost is the catch, but if you already own EGO tools this is the obvious buy.
- Echo PB-2620 Handheld Gas Leaf Blower If you want gas but not Husqvarna, Echo is the other name professionals reach for, with a strong owner rating and a well-supported dealer parts network.
- WORX 12 Amp Turbine Electric Leaf Blower WG520 Corded like the Toros but with substantially more air volume, and one of the highest owner ratings in the whole leaf blower category. The pick if you want maximum corded output and do not need vacuum mode.
Which should you buy?
Pace out the yard first. If everything you need to clear sits within about 100 feet of an outdoor outlet, buy the Toro — the Ultra if you bag your leaves, the Power Sweep if you are really just tidying a deck and a driveway. If the work runs beyond a cord, or the leaves are wet and matted, buy the Husqvarna 350BT. These two brands are not really competing: Husqvarna sells gas machines in the professional tradition, Toro sells inexpensive corded electrics, and there is no model in either range that splits the difference.
What do CFM and MPH actually tell you?
CFM is air volume — how much air the machine moves. MPH is air speed — how fast it leaves the nozzle. Volume is what pushes a mass of leaves; speed is what breaks them loose from wet grass or gravel. You need both, but for clearing a yard, CFM does the work, and it is the number budget blowers quietly leave off the box.
Look at the gap on this page. The Toro Ultra advertises a high 250 MPH and a respectable 410 CFM, which is genuinely good for a corded machine. The Husqvarna 350BT is slower at 180 MPH but moves 692 CFM — nearly 70 percent more air. In practice the backpack clears a driveway in one steady pass where the corded machine needs several. Our guide to CFM versus MPH works through the numbers properly.
How far will an extension cord really take you?
Further than people expect, if the cord is right, and this is the single biggest determinant of whether a corded blower disappoints. Use a heavy-gauge outdoor cord — 12 gauge for runs beyond 50 feet — because a thin cord drops voltage, the motor draws harder, and you lose exactly the power you paid for. Owners who complain that a corded blower is gutless are frequently describing a cord problem.
Practically, 100 feet of good cord covers a typical suburban lot from a garage outlet. Beyond that you are dragging, snagging and unplugging, and the machine that is technically capable becomes the machine you avoid using. That is the point where gas or a battery platform stops being a luxury.
Is a gas blower still a sensible buy?
In most of the country, yes, with two caveats worth knowing before you spend. The first is legal: California has ended the sale of new gas-powered small off-road engines, leaf blowers included, and a number of cities elsewhere restrict when gas blowers may be run. Our page on gas leaf blower bans in California covers what that means for buyers and for resale.
The second is fuel. Two-stroke engines need gasoline mixed with oil at a specified ratio, and stale or badly mixed fuel is the overwhelming cause of the starting complaints in owner reviews for every gas blower brand, not just Husqvarna. Mix small batches, use ethanol-free gas where you can find it, add stabilizer, and drain or run dry before winter. How to mix gas for a leaf blower takes ten minutes to read and prevents the most common repair bill in this category.
Does the mulching vacuum earn its place?
If you bag leaves rather than blowing them into a wood line, it is the most valuable feature in this comparison. A metal-impeller mulcher shreds leaves down to a small fraction of their loose volume, so what would have been many bags becomes a few, and the shredded material breaks down far faster in a compost pile or as a mulch layer on beds.
The honest limits: vacuum mode is slow, the bag fills quickly, and the changeover between blowing and vacuuming is more fiddly than the marketing suggests. It also does not enjoy wet leaves, which clog the intake. Use it for the final tidy-up after blowing everything into a pile, not as your primary method — our leaf vacuum mulcher picks explain the technique that makes it work.
Backpack or handheld?
Weight is not the deciding factor — where the weight sits is. The 350BT is more than twice the weight of the 125B, and it is far more comfortable to use for an hour because a harness transfers load to your hips and back while a handheld hangs off one wrist and one shoulder. Anyone clearing for more than about fifteen minutes at a stretch is better served by a backpack.
Handhelds win on quick jobs, on storage space, and on getting into tight corners where a backpack frame is awkward. If your leaf season is two big weekends, buy the backpack. If it is ten-minute tidy-ups, the handheld or a corded machine is the more sensible tool — handheld versus backpack sets out the split in detail.
The bottom line
Husqvarna wins on capability and Toro wins on cost per useful year, and the two brands answer different questions. For genuine acreage, wet leaves or a property with nothing but distance between the trees and the road, the 350BT is the machine, and it is built to be serviced rather than replaced. For a suburban lot, the Toro Ultra does 80 percent of the work for a quarter of the money, adds mulching, and never needs a drop of fuel.
For the wider field, see our leaf blower roundup, or the backpack picks and cordless picks if you have already chosen a format. Gas versus electric is the argument underneath this whole page, and our Craftsman vs Toro comparison covers Toro's other rival. We rank from aggregated owner ratings and expert consensus rather than first-hand testing — see how we rank.