Out the box this pole saw was solid and easy to put together. Endurance will be required if using the full length be prepared. The saw blade has a curve with a stop on each end which definitely helps when cutting . You get that full stroke meaning it cuts the saw time down. Ive used this saw on live oak/southern oak tree with 4\" branch diameter and it cuts well. I have a 12ft fiskars manual saw which has no stop and it jumps all over the place. I gave this 4 stars because the saw is great. Easy connection twist lock type for the pole. Don't waist your money on the package for both saw and branch trimmer. Trimmer looks good, but it's blade position makes it almost worthless. The pully system rope is smaller and the way it grasp a limb seems to be loosing bite force. The fiskars branch trimmer is far better than this one , but the saw blade is good on this one. After about 8 hrs of use I had to pop some pins / tension pins back in to holes of the threaded sectional pieces . No biggie, but make note of that. This saw gets it done, but this at full length is not for the weak. It's not bad when you cut up to 2\" branches, but once you get past that it becomes a hard core endurance and stanima race .