Both brands have their good and bad saws. What are you going to do with it? What size saw are you considering? How much experience do you have with chainsaw?
I have multiple saws from 44cc to 90cc, Stihl, , and Echo.
I don`t have any experience. Thank`s, I`ll try to find information about Echo.
And what do you tend to do with your saw(s)? process firewood?, drop trees?, general trimming and pruning? what?
First off there is two basic types of chainsaws manufactured. The first type is built for a 50 hour service life and can not be rebuilt, service life refers to actual hours the saw is running. So these are you $99 to $199 box store saws, 50 cc or less. Now with basic maintenance these saw can last a homeowner 10 years if all he is doing is actually running it 1 hour a day, 5 days a year.
The second type is designed and built for a 200 hour service life and can be rebuilt. these are your better saws sold at shops and tractor, landscaping stores mostly $400 and up.
All new saws today are equipped with a lot of emission stuff on them which makes them run leaning and thereby hotter and need to be retuned after you get a few hours on them.
Go to
Arboristsite.com and start reading.
I basically run 3 saws; Husqvarna 357, 57 cc 20" bar, a Stihl 441 magnum 70 cc 25" bar, and the one I use the most now a days is an Echo 440, 44 cc, 16" bar.
Stihl's have a unique starting procedure from cold that some people have issues with and the dreaded "flippy caps"
Echo builds some fine saws that will rival anything out there, plus they carry a 5 year consumer warranty, where Stihl, Husqvarna and most other brands only have a 2 year consumer warranty.
There is quite a few other brands out there that are worth considering also.
Have you starting looking and touching saws yet? You don't know anybody that runs a saw regularly?
Most importantly don't skimp of the safety gear. You will stick your saw, and it will kickback at you sooner or later even with a safety chain as you go through the learning curve.
