I know this is an old thread, but I thought I would give my experience since I just purchased an HT 56. I use it to trim a few trees at the house, as well as clear shooting lanes for my deer stands. I've been using a manual pole saw for years for these jobs and finally got fed up with it this year. Nothing huge. Mostly stuff that's less than 2", but occasionally I'll have to do something in the 4" to 6" range. FWIW, I think the 1-1/2" to 2-" limbs are the hardest to cut with a manual saw. They are too flimsy to stay still when trying to saw them, and too thick to easily lop off with the pruner. These pole saws cut through them like a hot knife through butter. Thankfully none of my local dealers had a 101 in stock. I would have given it serious consideration for the extra reach. I gave $360 + tax for the saw. It would have been hard to justify another $200+ for an extra 26" of reach, but I was so fed up with my manual version that I just might have done it. The platform on most of my deer stands are between 16' and 20' up, so a 9' pole isn't going to be quite long enough to do everything from the ground. It will do most of it though, and what it won't reach from the ground, I'm sure I can find a way to reach and it will be safer than yanking on a manual pruner while standing on a ladder like I've had to do in the past. I've seen several comments and reviews who've said that its not worth getting out either of these saws for small jobs like pruning one or two little trees. I disagree completely. What would have taken me 45 min to cut, just around the house, was done in 10 min. .
As far as the HT 56 goes, it works great. While the chain and bar are more expensive to replace, that narrow 1/4" chain cuts a LOT faster than I expected it to. It doesn't snag and grab on tiny little green twigs like a regular chainsaw does, and it slices through 2" stuff faster than I could lop off a 1/2" branch with the pruner, and that assumes that I already had the branch located correctly in the pruner. I can't express how pleased I am with this unit. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a reason to spend considerably more on the 101, but I'm sure it has its place too. For a home owner/deer hunter, the HT 56 is a great fit.