Charles Bentley 125L Portable Cement Mixer, 550W

Third in our cement mixer guide is the Charles Bentley 125L, listed at £239.99 with a 4.5 out of 5 rating from 101 reviews. It carries the largest drum size in this guide, and on its own numbers it is the most usable of them: the listing states a 125L drum capacity and a 113L mix capacity, which works out at roughly 90% of the drum filled with concrete, mortar or plaster. It runs a 550W motor at 230V/50Hz, turns the drum at 28 RPM and weighs 48kg on two wheels.

That 90% is the figure worth pausing on, because the same brand's 63L mixer quotes 45L from a 63L drum (71%), the Hyundai 63L quotes 47L (75%) and The Handy's 125L drum is quoted at 90L (72%). On the listings alone, the Charles Bentley is the only one of the four that claims you can fill nine-tenths of the drum rather than about seven-tenths — and it and The Handy both sell a 125L drum, so the drum size in the title does not separate them, only the quoted mix capacity does. Every figure on this page — the price, the rating, the capacities, the motor and the buyer reviews quoted below — comes from the Amazon listing for this mixer, not from a mixer we bought and tested.