I am coming from using a spade edger, rotary edger, B&D 18v trimmer (flips to edger) and a 27cc gas trimmer that I tried to edge in the past. Edge Hog easily wins and I will compare them all! Those hand tools actually work well but it takes a lot of time and work. With (1) spade edger, I am jumping on the spade edger like a pogo stick and moving a measly 6 inches at a time. With the (2) rotary edger, you get a tremendous workout but the rotary edger clogs and the wheels don't always spin. And edging with a string trimmer is good just for maintenance of the the edge but not with the first initial edging. And I actually like using my (3) black and decker 18v trimmer that flips to an edger and it is pretty comfortable but the nicad battery runs out way too quick for me to completely finish trimming and edging. String edging is still nowhere near as polished looking as metal blade edging because string power can't compete with metal blade power. My (4) 27cc gasoline trimmer isn't comfortable and it is pretty difficult to balance and see for the perfect edge. I can see lot of shoddy edging and wasted string by accidentally hitting the concrete. Flipping a trimmer over to use as an edger? Not for me. Shoddy looking compared to the Edge Hog perfect edging. With time and effort, those hand tools work and have pretty nice results but I needed an easier way and the Edge Hog was the answer.