Stihl makes good trimmers, as does Jonsered (which are nothing more than black-and-red Husqvarnas).

That said, the Japanese have the corner on the trimmer market in terms of design and durability. Shindaiwa, RedMax (recently bought by Husqvarna, incidentally) and Echo are superb choices.

If money is tight or if you'd rather not hit up the dedicated OPE stores, look at the Echo straight shaft trimmers that you can find at the BigBox stores. They're plenty durable for serious use.

I just purchased a Stihl fs110 r. Only used it twice so I can't comment on longevity. I do like the way it's balanced and it seems to have lots of power. I was about 1/2 throttle and it was cutting strong.
I was a little frustrated with the breakage of line. I thought a commercial style trimmer would handle the line much better. I was breaking the line easily. I would have to stop take the cutting head apart and re-feed the line. I do have lots of rocks to trim around which eats the line. I may try the heavier .131" line that it can take. I'm also just getting used to the trimmer so maybe I'll keep feeding more line before it snaps inside the housing.
I was actually pretty set on trying shindaiwa. When I was ready to buy I quickly found out that so called dealers were switching over to echo or have to order the shindawa's. I wanted a full service dealer. I didn't feel comfortable buying a machine that no one was carrying. Echo seems to be taking over in my area. Stihl was my second choice and there was a full service dealer close by. Make sure you get what your looking for. For example if you want the trimmer to use other head attachments make sure it takes them. If you want to use the machine as a brushcutter make sure you get the right machine. For example the guy sold me the stihl fs110fx for $300. Great price. Got it home and found out it was a dedicated grass trimmer could not use with blade.Also doesn't take attachments which I didn't care too much about. Took it back and got the fs110r which can take attachments and blade. To use a blade you have to buy an attachment kit. ALSO MOST MANUFACTURERS STATE TO USE BIKE HANDLES WHEN USING BLADES. Stihl requires bike handles for many blades but will allow some blades if you buy the barrier bar handle. The stihl I have also has a break in period for the engine. They state do not operate at full throttle under no load until after 5 tanks of gas. GOOD THINK I'M AN INSTRUCTION SHEET READER.

'For example the guy sold me the stihl fs110fx for $300. Great price. Got it home and found out it was a dedicated grass trimmer could not use with blade.'
That would be the FS100RX. It is a lighter weight version of the 110 with a hollow aluminum drive shaft.
Store your spare line in water to reduce breakage. Dry line becomes very brittle.

If you are getting that much breakage I would guess you either have brittle line as canguy mentioned, or you are putting the line through some tough stuff like stalks, rocks, fence or something else hard. If I did not hit anything in my yard cleanup, I could do my 20 minutes with no feeds.

The line usually breaks because it is rubbing too hard against the other line on the spool and welds itself to that line. The flexing is then concentrated and it breaks at the welded point.

You can minimize the problem by spraying the line with silicone, or teflon spray with it on the spool. The water trick also helps, but it dries out again pretty quickly.

The best way to get rid of the breakage is to run at less than full throttle. I have found that the breakage will totally go away as you near half speed. I always use low speed when I am edgeing along chain link, rocks, or anything that the string hits hard, intermittently. For me, I needed to get a better trimmer to do the slow thing, as the cheap ones would not run decently, but my Echo and Stihl both do wonderfully at the lower speed, and also perform great at full speed in the regular grass areas.

Thanks everyone.

I believe I'll go for a minimum of the Stihl FS 110R.

BTW ... what does the "R" actually stand for?

After fighting with difficult starting on two Echo trimmers I gave up on them and got a Jonsered. It has yet to let me down and just fired up on the second pull a few weeks ago after being up all winter. It was a little touchy at low speeds for the few times using it but now it runs great at all speeds. I can't think of the model # now but it has more than enough power and has cleared out some pretty rough areas in the 4-5 years I've had it. A friend uses Shindaiwas and my Jonsered impressed him.

Not sure what the R is but the fs110R comes with loop handle and the fs110 without the r comes with bike handle.

Stihl also sells other fs products that are basically the same thing but with different power. For example I could probably have done well with the fs90r for $300 bucks @ 27cc I think. But I said what the heck I'll go for more power with the fs110R @ $350.

Check out their web sight for the various models.

"BTW ... what does the "R" actually stand for?"

For models which are/were available with optional handles, "R" denotes loop handle version.

I have had a Stihl FS90R for about a season now. It has plenty of power, can operate at mid-throttle settings, is well balanced, and relatively quite. I also bought the strait edger head. It takes about a minute to switch from line trimmer to edger. It has plenty of power for any edging. I choose the FS-90 over the FS-110 since the power rating was almost identical (1.27 vs. 1.3), it could be exchanged for an FS-110 within 30 days for only the $50 price difference, and it was a later model (might have slight design improvements?). I love it!

Just bought an echo. Had a ryobi 18 volt. Light and short enough for wife to use. But I left it on charger all winter, and it killed the charger. Thought about getting another electric, as the reason I gave up on gas was they were hard to start after winter storage. But now I know to either run em dry, or use premixed fuel, non ethanol, higher octane, pre stabilized. When researching the various battery ones, there were too many issues with battery failures after not much use. Short run times, eveven on bigger, 40, and 56 volt units. So as long as I can avoid starting issues, I'm back to gas. The reason I chose Echo is my dealer says they outsell both Stihl ana Huskvarna by far in there store. Echo has 5 year warranty. Stihl and Husky have 2.

Echo or Shindawa are fine trimmers . Once engine has a few tanks through it , use a premium synthetic oil . Prior to storage or last usage of the year buy some Startron @ Wal-Mart add an ounce to your fuel tank and run the trimmer dry . This Product will replace all other fuel treatments you have ever used , I now await the avalanche of , Echo,s warranty is not worth the paper it,s written on !