I went looking for a pole saw because branches were rubbing on my roof and hitting my gutters. I found a few at a local hardware store, which the salesperson described as hard to use, then he tried to steer me toward buying either an electric or gas-powered pole-mounted chainsaw. I don't trim trees often, so I wanted to avoid the expense of and maintenance on a chainsaw. However, the manual pole saws they carried were all a brand I had never heard of, heavier than I wanted, and priced comparably with this Fiskars, so I decided to buy it from Amazon. I was pleased that this saw was significantly lighter, and that the replaceable Woodzig blade is an aggressive cutter -- it doesn't require a lot of weight on the blade, although I found a rapid jab-tug worked best to keep branches from swaying back and forth. I also debated buying the model that's just a saw, but having the pruner for smaller branches (which aren't stiff enough to saw efficiently) is well worth the extra money and weight. I haven't used this tool long enough to speak definitively about how the extension lock holds up over time, but I found it easy to use and it did not slip. This tool was much easier to use than expected, and I have no doubts that the decision to order this model rather than what the local store stocked was a good one.
I also want to make an observation based on other pole saw reviews I've read. I've read complaints about blades binding and how dangerous falling branches are, leading me to suspect that people were sawing on branches directly above them. That's not how you should use a pole saw; you should extend it so that you're standing off to the side and cut on the top of branches rather than their side. This technique results in the weight of the branch opening your cut rather than pinching the blade, and when the branch falls you aren't underneath it.
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