Bosch AdvancedRotak 44-750 review: The comeback king of corded mowers

With cordless lawn mower models becoming better and more affordable each year, buying a new corded electric mower might seem contrary. Yet the Bosch AdvancedRotak 44-750 is a good reminder of what cabled mowers do so well: it’s a big and beefy mower with a 44cm cutting width, but at roughly £275 it’s still reasonably affordable. In fact, the equivalent Bosch cordless model, the AdvancedRotak 36V-44-750, costs close to £300 more.

This model also offers plenty of power – and no matter how long you need to mow, it won’t run out of charge. Of course, this also means there’s all the hassle of a cable and extensions, but does that really matter if the end result is a great lawn mower built to tackle larger lawns with ease? I’ve spent the past few days testing the AdvancedRotak 44-750 to find out.

Bosch AdvancedRotak 44-750 review: What do you get for the money?

The AdvancedRotak 44-750 is an electric mower with a powerful 1,800W motor and a 44cm cutting width. It features Bosch’s Ergoflex handles (complete with Ergoslide) for comfortable mowing, and a single-button control for the cutting height that can take you from 25mm to 80mm in a jiffy, with five stages in between.

Arriving with a 50-litre plastic and fabric grass box, you won’t be making constant trips to the compost bin or green garden waste bin when you’re giving your lawn a trim. It also comes with a mulching plug if you prefer to leave your clippings to rot down and feed the lawn.

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Bosch AdvancedRotak 44-750 review: How easy is it to use?

There’s no getting around the fact that this is a big and heavy mower, roughly 74cm long and 47.5cm wide minus the handles and the grass box, and weighing 16kg. However, it’s a great design. The Ergolift handles lock down over the body of the mower for storage, but lift up easily once you push in the unlock buttons. Meanwhile, a sliding mechanism allows the handle to extend to one of four lengths between 55cm and 83cm to match your height and preferences. It feels like it could go further and higher, if it wasn’t constrained by the cable connecting the controls on the handle to the motor. Still, having tried some budget mowers where every adjustment feels janky, rough or prone to failure, the AdvancedRotak 44-750 is a showcase for good engineering.

The top of the handle incorporates two comfortable vertical grips. Once you push the button in the bar between the two, you can use the triggers mounted on the grips or mounted on the bar to activate the mower and keep it running. Hold the grips or hold the handle – it’s your choice.

The size of the mower makes it a little less manoeuvrable than smaller, lighter mowers, but the chunky wheels help you keep a steady line, even when the lawn is undulating; it isn’t too much trouble to turn when you reach the end, either. In terms of ergonomics, it’s about as good as larger mowers get. Meanwhile, combs behind each wheel help push grass into the blade as you drive the mower forward, helping you mow close to the edge of borders, fences or walls.

Bosch has also thought about storage. As mentioned, the handle collapses down to a smaller length and folds neatly over the body of the mower, while both the grass box and the thick red 10m cable can be removed and stored elsewhere. There’s a handle on the top and another built into the front of the mower to make it easier to carry, and I found that, stored vertically, the mower didn’t take up a huge amount of room in my garage.

Of course, the one downside of using the AdvancedRotak 44-750 is the cable. As someone who now mostly uses cordless mowers, I’d forgotten how much of a hassle it is to ensure the cord is trailing safely behind you, and to move it as you go along to keep it out of harm’s way. Also, to reach more distant corners of my garden, I had to bring out my trusty outdoor extension cable reel. Still, the Bosch’s cable is thick, easy to spot and isn’t prone to tangling, plus it plugs into a chunky socket on the handle, so you can just remove it and coil it up for storage. That also makes it easy to replace, should you accidentally chop through it – providing you survive (which is the reason you need an RCD between the mower and the mains). It’s a shame that all corded mowers aren’t designed this way.

Bosch AdvancedRotak 44-750 review: How well does it mow?

The key thing here is that you have a lot of power. Give it a nice flat lawn to trim and it will give you a fantastic clean result, especially on the lower settings. Give it tougher or longer grass to get through and it will cut through that without a grumble – and still give you a nice, crisp cut. If the grass is really soggy then cuttings can collect in the channel between blade and bag and clog things up, but most of the time it just works.

There’s a small red flap that pops up when the bag needs emptying, and – unless you need to mess with the cord – that’s the only time you need to stop.

Adjusting the cutting height is easy. You just depress the red button on the top of the mower, then use the handle to pull the body of the mower up or down, single-handed. It’s also relatively quiet by the standards of electric mowers. I measured the sound output while mowing at just 76.6dBA.

Bosch AdvancedRotak 44-750 review: Should you buy it?

If you can live with the cable, go for it. This is a solid and well-designed electric mower that will power through almost anything you put in front of it, while being very adjustable and comfortable to use. It’s great for larger lawns, and also a lot cheaper than the equivalent cordless models. For many people, the mow-anywhere convenience of cordless will win out. However, the AdvancedRotak 44-750 makes a strong argument that corded electric mowers still have their place and can still do a fantastic job.