Backpack Blower Comparison: Stihl BR 600 vs ECHO PB-770T – Which 1 is Better?

December 14, 2017

Hey what's going on everybody, Richie Plemons with Plemons Lawn and Landscape here. Here’s a quick comparison video between the STIHL BR 600 and the ECHO PB-770T backpack blowers. I’ve put each of these blowers through their paces on the job for the last few weeks and below are my thoughts on power, comfort, construction, and cold-start. 

Check out my video or read the review below.

Trnascript

Hey what's going on everybody, Richie Plemons with Plemons Lawn and Landscape here. Kinda wanna do a quick comparison video between the STIHL BR 600 and the ECHO PB-770T. Before we get started I will say that ECHO did send me this blower for being a member of the user advisory group, and if that's something that you're interested in, you need to check out echomeansbusiness.com. Go to their website, check it out, look around the forums. There'll be some stuff there you can sign up to see if you can become a member as well. STIHL's not paying me for any of this. I actually purchased this blower on my own. We use it in our business every day. So, that's something that, you know, before we ever get started we would like to say that they're not paying us for this review or anything like that.

First thing I wanna talk about is power between the two units. When we talk about power, the STIHL is a little bit more powerful unit. It does have a 64.8cc engine as opposed to the 63.3cc engine on the ECHO PB-770T. When I say more powerful, does it mean better though. But both of these pieces of equipment are very comparable. They are both very capable of doing the task at hand. Whether it be blowing leaves or just clearing off a driveway. So, it does have a larger engine with the STIHL. You do get a little bit larger engine. At the max mile per hour that it's currently blowing is 238 miles per hour, as opposed to the ECHO's 234 miles per hour.

 When it comes to CFM, which is cubic feet for minute, which is how much air volume you can push out of the end of the tube, when you look at the STIHL, it's 677 cubic feet per minute as opposed to the 756 cubic feet per minute that you get out of the ECHO. And so, ECHO does push out more cubic feet, which means that you're gonna blow bigger piles of leaves a lot easier. So, in dry conditions that's the go-to blower for us, would be the ECHO. Now, that being said, when we get into the wetter conditions, we prefer the STIHL blower over the ECHO. It seems to really push through and get those wet leaves up off the ground. So I do like that. All in all, they're pretty even, head to head, for me. I don't see a whole lot of difference there when it comes to power. They're pretty even.

Next thing would be the comfortability of the machine on your back. We wanna know how comfortable they are. You know, you're gonna be wearing these for a long period of time, you want something that's gonna sit on your back and not hurt your back throughout the day. And so when we talk about comfortability, I feel that the ECHO, this is my personal opinion, that the ECHO is a more comfortable blower. It's got larger parachute backpack straps on it. And so it's just a more comfortable blower on my back. A little bit better padding. However, the STIHL is still a comfortable blower. I've worn both of these blowers for long periods of time and I really don't notice that much of a difference, other than the straps. I do like the straps on the ECHO a little better. And I also like that it has a fan that blows on your back so when it's hot, you're sweating, you're blowing and you've got that fan on your back, it keeps you cooled off. So I do like that. And so, I have to say, comfortability factors, I like the ECHO PB-770T better than I do the STIHL.

When we start talking about little things on the machine, as far as the plastic parts go, one of the down sides to the ECHO PB-770T that I have found would be this top handle here. From the mold here it seems like it's just got a little sharp edge on the end of it. So when you grab it, you know, it kinda feels uncomfortable in your hand. Other than that, that's not to big of a deal. That's just kinda petty, but I had noticed that. As far as the tubes go, they're both fully adjustable, in and out. So, both of them are evenly matched there. The handles, as far as the trigger handle, to me I do like the STIHL trigger handle better than the ECHO trigger handle. The ECHO PB-770T does now have the two-finger trigger, so you can get both fingers on it, that's nice. But I just seem to like the way that the STIHL fits in my hand just a little bit better than the ECHO. But, all in all, both of these blowers, like I said before, very capable machines, very capable of getting the job done and doing what they need to do.

 So both of these blowers have been sitting here all night and so now we wanna start them up, show you want they do during a cold start. And show you the ease of starting these machines. It's about 33, 32 degrees here right now. As you can see, we did get some snow overnight. We had planned to do a little demonstration with some leaves but, mother nature had other plans for us today. So we'll go ahead and fire these up. Like I said, they've been sitting overnight and we'll see what they do.

I'd say that's pure luck to get them to start on the first try [inaudible 00:06:27] takes about 2 pulls on the STIHL and 1 or 2 pulls on the ECHO. For both of them to fire up on the first pull, I mean that says something about the machine there. They're both great pieces of equipment and I can't complain.

 So, that being said, I can't really complain, I mean they both fired right up on the first pull, so I'm happy with that. You guys can do your own comparison and get your own ideas but, as far as that goes, both of these pieces of equipment are very good. I wouldn't hesitate one bit to take them to the job site and use them on a daily basis.

 Other than that guys, I think our next video we'll get to meet our new employee, we got a new employee that we just hired. What is that? What ... hey!

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