I wish I would have bought one of these sooner. To cut high branches in the past, I used one of the rope saws with the chain saw blade in the middle. It worked well, but you spent most of your time trying to throw it over the proper branch. This is much quicker. You can go through branches much faster. As other reviewers say, it's really hard to manage fully extended and it's pretty flexible, but there really are no other alternatives. It's 27 feet long! Something that long is going to flex. For less than $100, you can save thousands on paying someone to cut high branches. Just be careful and take it slow.