Cobra QS2800 review: a powerful garden shredder at a keen price

Garden shredders are becoming a bit of an autumn staple. All that summer growth on your trees and hedges can get in the way, block out light, or make access tricky.

You could chop it all up and take it to the tip in big chunks, or you could get yourself a garden shredder. And if you've never used one before, you're missing a treat, because they're a marvellous thing.

Instead of grappling with a massive pile of branches, they turn all the offcuts into a manageable bucket of chippings, which you can use on your flowerbeds to suppress weeds, as compost, or even as just a manageable load for that tip run.

I've been living with the Cobra QS2800 during a pretty arduous project, getting rid of a big section of leylandii hedge. It's a 2,800W electric shredder that uses a drum gear rather than the fast-spinning blades you'll find in cheaper machines.

That means it effectively crushes and cuts woody material as it pulls it through, with Cobra claiming it'll handle branches up to 45mm thick.

There's an auto-feed system, reverse function for dealing with jams and a sizeable 60-litre collection box underneath, while the whole thing currently costs £169.9 on Amazon.

It's quite a substantial bit of gardening equipment at 27.5kg, but if you've got trees, mature shrubs or big hedges to keep under control, there's a lot here to like.

What I liked about the Cobra QS2800

The big attraction is simply how much easier it makes dealing with woody garden waste.

Rather than standing there chopping branches into smaller pieces by hand, you feed them into the top and the drum mechanism grabs hold and pulls them through for you.

That auto-feed system makes a surprisingly big difference. Once the machine has got hold of a reasonably straight branch, you're not continually forcing it down into the mechanism. It largely gets on with the job itself.

There's also a supplied plunger for helping less cooperative material into the chute while keeping your hands well away from the moving parts.

I also like the drum-style shredding system. These machines tend to be much less frantic than the high-speed blade shredders I've used before. There's still obviously noise from a 2,800W motor crushing branches, but it's more of a determined mechanical crunch than the screaming racket you can get from some garden machinery.

And the 45mm capacity is pretty substantial for a domestic electric shredder. I wouldn't make a habit of feeding it the toughest 45mm hardwood branches you can find, but there's plenty of capacity here for typical hedge, shrub and tree pruning.

The 60-litre collection box is useful too. Shredders generate material surprisingly quickly, so having a decent-sized container underneath saves you constantly stopping and emptying it. The box locks into the bottom of the machine and there's a safety cut-out that prevents the shredder operating when it isn't properly fitted.

And that's really where a shredder starts earning its keep. An unruly heap of branches that might fill a car or several garden bins can suddenly be reduced to a much more manageable pile of chips. Those can then go into the compost heap, into the green bin or potentially be used around the garden as mulch, depending on what you've shredded.

The reverse function is another feature I'm very glad to see. Garden shredders inevitably get themselves into trouble occasionally, particularly if you feed something awkward into them, so being able to reverse the drum rather than dismantling half the machine is very welcome.

What I didn't like about the Cobra QS2800

It is quite heavy. At 27.5kg, the QS2800 is not something you'll casually pick up and carry across the garden. There are wheels fitted to the frame, thankfully, but anyone with steps, steep ground or several levels to negotiate should bear that weight in mind.

The other limitation is inherent to this type of shredder. A drum machine is at its happiest chomping through woody branches and firmer material. Give it a big handful of wet leaves, soft stems and soggy green waste and things can become rather less elegant.

That doesn't make the Cobra bad at its job, it's simply worth understanding what that job is. If you've just cut back a tree, hedge or substantial shrub, it's exactly the sort of material the QS2800 wants.

If you're hoping to pour bags of wet weeds and grass clippings through it, there are better ways of dealing with them.

The cable is also a bit short, at three metres, so in many gardens you're going to need a decent outdoor extension lead. Bear in mind how powerful this thing is, it'll quickly overpower a cheap lead, or possibly overheat a rolled-up one.

And finally, it's a fairly simple machine. There are no batteries, clever electronics or fancy controls here. It's a big motor, a drum, a box and some switches. But in fairness, that's arguably exactly what you want from something that's going to spend its life eating tree branches.

Overall verdict - should you buy the Cobra QS2800?

The Cobra QS2800 is one of those garden tools that solves a very specific problem extremely well. If you've got mature hedges, trees or shrubs, you'll know just how quickly a modest bit of pruning can leave you staring at an enormous pile of branches. The QS2800 turns that pile into something dramatically easier to deal with.

Its 2,800W motor has plenty of muscle, the auto-feed system takes much of the effort out of the process and the 60-litre collection box is large enough that you aren't forever stopping to empty it. The reverse function is useful when something does get stuck, and the drum mechanism feels particularly well suited to woody garden waste.

It's not light, it isn't particularly interested in wet leafy rubbish and the material that comes out isn't finely mulched. But those feel like reasonable compromises.

At £169.99, the QS2800 is really keenly priced. I've also been using a Bosch AXT 25 TC shredder on my project and while it does have a bit more grunt, it costs double the amount. And I don't think you get double the shredder.

If your annual autumn tidy-up usually ends with a mountain of branches and several hours wondering how on earth you're going to get rid of them, this makes a rather convincing case for shredding the lot instead.