The right lawn mower can make an onerous chore downright pleasant. To help you find the perfect tool to keep your lawn healthy and happy, we tested every aspect of these mowers side by side. This is how we did it.
Mowing
How well a mower's blade works is obviously important, but there is so much more to mowing than just cutting grass. We check to see how well each blade cuts, how effectively each deck navigates challenging terrain like divots and ditches, and how well each mower mulches or bags your grass. We mowed in short grass, tall grass, wet grass, dry grass, and even grass with leaves, all the while evaluating for the evenness of the cut, and whether it left any stragglers or stripes standing. We checked whether it cut in reverse and docked points if we needed to recover ground to achieve an even cut, especially over dips and bumps.
Mulching and Bagging
We conducted this test in both mulching and bagging modes on mowers that support both, ensuring we used the correct blade for the task.
After cutting in mulching mode, we walk through the cuts and rake up the remains. We judge them by how evenly the cut grass is spread and how finely it is chopped. We also note any large clumps and whether or not the debris clogged the blade at any point during the test.
To test bagging mode, we repeat the process, making similar passes and observing how well the system works. We assess whether grass escapes the bag, how well the bag loads, whether the system clogs, and how well the mower performs when the bag is full. We also note and rank the ease of removing, emptying, and replacing each bag.
Terrain Management
It's one thing to cut beautifully consistent grass on a perfectly flat lawn; it's another to handle dips and divots. The width of the wheelbase and rigidity of the deck both affect how well a lawnmower rolls with the terrain.
To test this, we make sure each lawnmower tackles a challenging portion of the yard during our mowing tests, and then we judge and rank the results.
Power Performance
In this review, we compare lawn mowers powered by gas, batteries, electrical cord, and manual mowers. To assess the punch each mower packs, we compared the overall run time for each mower and factored into the score how long it took to either refuel or recharge. For corded mowers, we determined the maximum extension cord length to assess the mowers' range. Whether or not a mower had the oomph to actually cut the grass was factored into our mowing metric.
Handling
With the advent of self-propelled lawn mowers and lighter composite materials, there is more variance than ever before in how well they handle. To compare the handling of each mower, we evaluated the ease of starting and stopping the mower, the effort required to move throughout your yard, and how well each mower was able to navigate obstacles in your yard, whether it was a hill, dip, garden bed, or tree.
For self-propelled mowers, we compared the effort required to push them across both flat ground and up hills, and also whether the self-propelled feature inhibited our ability to navigate U-turns easily.
Ease of Use
To test how easy each mower is to use and maintain, we start by reviewing the manual and judging how easy it is to understand and use. Then we assess how easy it is to change blades and to fold and store each mower and measure their folded dimensions to determine storage convenience.
We also evaluated adjusting various settings on the mower, such as speed, blade power, and cutting height. Lastly, we annotated any special maintenance concerns or safety features.
Noise
Our final metric was evaluating the noise level of each mower. We used a decibel reader held at ear height while actually cutting grass with each mower to compare the impact to our ears and hearing.
