Does The Lawn Mower® 4.0 use the same guards as the 3.0?

The Lawn Mower® 4.0 trimmer is supposed to be the best of the best. Part of its success stems from the great design features that it stole from its predecessor. The Lawn Mower 3.0 trimmer does many things right, so what was worth keeping for the 4.0? Do they cut the same way?

For the most part, the performance between the blades is comparable. If you enjoy the 3.0 experience, you’ll love the 4.0. They cut and handle similarly; the 4.0 simply includes a bunch of quality-of-life upgrades. One of those upgrades is found in adjustable trimming.

Does The Lawn Mower 4.0 trimmer use the same guards as the 3.0?

The short answer is no. The guards are not the same, and they are not interchangeable; this ultimately comes down to body design. The blade head is the same on both trimmers, but the body for the 4.0 was redesigned entirely; this forced us to change the size and shape of the snap-on trimmer guards, too.

Each trimmer has its own set, but each trimmer comes with its own complete set. So, you don’t need to save your 3.0 guards for your 4.0 anyway. The trimmers are designed to be self-contained packages that don’t need anything from previous models. 

As far as the cutting guards go, we can compare the two trimmers separately to see what you get.

The Lawn Mower 3.0 trimmer

This trimmer comes with two guards, which leads to three effective cutting lengths. The guards are 2mm and 3mm, respectively. These are all reasonably short cutting lengths. The 3mm guard is roughly an eighth of an inch, or close to a “1” on traditional hair-cutting guards. The 2mm is substantially shorter, representing less than a twelfth of an inch.

You can also remove all guards and effectively get a shaving length from the 3.0. That means that the 3.0 is designed for closely cropped groin hair, and it’s a bit specialized in that regard.

The Lawn Mower 4.0 trimmer

The 4.0 expands on the 3.0’s capacity dramatically. It has four cutting guards lengths: 3mm, 6mm, 10mm, and 13mm.

The 3mm-6mm Guard On The Lawn Mower 4.0

The 10mm-13mm Guard On The Lawn Mower 4.0

That is effectively providing guards 1 through 4 on the traditional barber scale. To help a little more with perspective, a conventional military buzz cut will use the shortest guard offered by the 4.0. By the time you get to the 13mm guard, you’re looking at leaving a half-inch of hair. That’s short enough to be groomed, but it leaves a lot of room for freedom, and it certainly won’t be short enough to feel stubbly or prickly.

Ultimately, the 4.0 is designed to be an upgrade from the 3.0. The increased number of trimmer guards is a big part of that, and you get more control and versatility with the upgraded trimmer. The 3.0 is awesome at cutting hair, and it’s certainly a worthy tool. But, if you’re someone who likes having the best of the best, upgrading to the 4.0 makes total sense.