Garden 
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Some links on this page are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases — at no extra cost to you. We do not buy, test, or physically handle the products we cover; our rankings come from aggregated owner reviews, ratings and expert consensus. Commissions never change our verdicts. How we rank · full disclosure.
The short version: after weighing six popular mowers on owner ratings, review volume and the complaints that keep repeating, our #1 pick is the EGO Power+ LM2135SP — a 21-inch self-propelled battery mower that owners say genuinely replaced a gas machine. For small yards the Greenworks 40V 16-inch does the job for a fraction of the price, and if your grass is tall, wet and covers half an acre, the gas CRAFTSMAN M215 still makes the most sense.
We do not buy, mow with, or physically handle any mower. These rankings come from aggregated owner reviews, star ratings, review volume and expert consensus — the full method is on how we rank. Everything else about growing the lawn itself lives in our lawn care hub.
Top Picks at a Glance
Our #1 Pick: EGO Power+ LM2135SP
If you buy one mower this year and your yard is between a quarter and half an acre, this is the one the consensus lands on. Three things show up over and over in owner reviews. First, it does not feel like a compromise — the 21-inch deck and Select Cut twin-blade system chew through the kind of thick spring growth that stalls smaller battery mowers. Second, the self-propelled drive is genuinely good: speed is set with a dial on the handle rather than a squeeze bar, which owners with slopes and long runs call the difference between mowing and being dragged. Third, the included 7.5Ah battery is the right size, with reviewers routinely reporting a full quarter-acre cut with charge left over.
The complaints are real too and worth knowing before you spend. It is heavy for a battery mower at roughly 60 lb without the pack, so lifting it into a truck is a two-person job. The bag fills fast in spring and clogs if you bag wet grass. And it is expensive — you are paying roughly two and a half times what a small battery push mower costs. If your lawn is under a third of an acre and flat, you are almost certainly buying more mower than you need.
Consensus Score ██████████░░ 8.9 — from 1,547 owner ratings
The Ranked Field
Best for quarter- to half-acre yards, hills, and anyone done with gas
- 56V 7.5Ah battery and rapid charger included
- 21-inch steel deck, mulch / bag / side discharge
- Touch Drive self-propelled control on the handle
- Folds upright for narrow garage storage
Why buy it: the mower owners keep saying replaced a gas machine outright — enough power for tall growth, plus self-propelled drive and a battery that finishes a quarter-acre.
Best for lawns under a third of an acre with tight corners
- 40V 4.0Ah battery and charger included
- 16-inch deck turns in tight spaces
- Push-button start, no pull cord
- Shares batteries with 75+ Greenworks tools
Why buy it: the long-running value benchmark in battery mowing — light, quiet and cheap enough that owners forgive the modest deck width.
Best for small city lots and gardeners who struggle to push a heavy mower
- Two 20V batteries pair to run 40V
- Under 30 lb — easiest here to lift and steer
- IntelliCut adds torque only when needed
- 6-position height adjustment, single lever
Why buy it: the one owners with bad backs and small yards keep recommending — it barely feels like pushing a mower.
Best for half-acre-plus yards and thick, seedy, damp growth
- 140cc OHV engine, no priming needed
- 21-inch 3-in-1 deck: mulch, bag or discharge
- Front-wheel drive with 6 height settings
- Refuel and keep going — no charge wait
Why buy it: when the grass is tall and wet and the yard is big, gas still finishes the job in one pass.
Best for tiny yards near an outlet and second homes
- 12-amp motor, no gas or batteries to replace
- 14-inch deck, 3-position height control
- 10.6-gallon collection bag
- Handle collapses flat for storage
Why buy it: the cheapest genuinely well-reviewed mower here — nothing to charge, nothing to service, just an extension cord.
Best for small flat lawns and people who want silence
- 4-blade reel, 14-inch cutting width
- About 19 lb — stores on a wall hook
- Zero fuel, zero charging, near silent
- Scissor cut is gentler on grass blades
Why buy it: a genuinely clean cut with no motor at all — provided your lawn is small, flat and mown often.
Quick Comparison
| Product | Best for | Rating | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EGO Power+ LM2135SP 21″ Select Cut Self-Propelled | Best Overall | 4.41,547 ratings | ~$650 | Price |
| Greenworks 40V 16″ Cordless Push Mower (25322) | Best for Small Yards | 4.212,082 ratings | ~$260 | Price |
| WORX WG779 40V 14″ Cordless Mower | Best Lightweight Pick | 4.17,123 ratings | ~$300 | Price |
| CRAFTSMAN M215 21″ Self-Propelled Gas Mower | Best Gas Mower | 4.0141 ratings | ~$420 | Price |
| Sun Joe MJ401E 14″ Corded Electric Mower | Best Budget Buy | 4.23,712 ratings | ~$130 | Price |
| American Lawn Mower 1204-14 14″ Reel Mower | Best Manual Mower | 4.315,029 ratings | ~$95 | Price |
How We Rank Mowers
We never buy or physically handle the products on this site. Instead we read the reviews at scale. For this guide we weighted four things. Cutting performance under load — what owners report when the grass is tall, damp or seedy, which is where cheap mowers separate from good ones. Runtime and recovery — how much lawn a battery genuinely covers, and how long the recharge takes, taken from owner reports rather than manufacturer claims. Durability past season two — we weight reviews left a year or more after purchase far more heavily than day-one impressions, because that is where deck rust, drive-belt failures and battery fade show up. Ease of living with it — weight, folding storage, height adjustment and whether the bag is a chore to empty.
Ratings and review counts quoted here were current at the time of writing and move around; prices move faster still. What does not move much is the pattern of complaints, and that is what we weight hardest.
Consensus Scores
Each score is our weighted read of the owner-review record for that mower — never a lab figure, and always labelled with the review base it came from.
- EGO Power+ LM2135SP ██████████░░ 8.9 — from 1,547 owner ratings
- Greenworks 40V 16″ (25322) █████████░░░ 8.4 — from 1,547 owner ratings
- WORX WG779 40V 14″ ████████░░░░ 8.1 — from 1,547 owner ratings
- CRAFTSMAN M215 Gas ███████░░░░░ 7.5 — from 1,547 owner ratings
- Sun Joe MJ401E ████████░░░░ 8.0 — from 1,547 owner ratings
- American Lawn Mower 1204-14 ███████░░░░░ 7.6 — from 1,547 owner ratings
The Mowers, Reviewed
1. EGO Power+ LM2135SP — Best Overall
Covered above. Owners praise: gas-equivalent cutting power, excellent self-propelled control, battery that finishes the job, vertical storage. Owners complain about: heavy to lift, bag clogs in wet grass, high price, and a handle-fold mechanism a minority found stiff. Best fit for a quarter to half an acre, especially with slopes.
2. Greenworks 40V 16″ (25322) — Best for Small Yards
This mower has been a fixture in battery-mower rankings for over a decade, and the review base reflects it — thousands of owners across many seasons. The 16-inch deck is the whole story: it is nimble around beds and trees, light to push, and cheap, but it means more passes on anything approaching a third of an acre. Owners praise: quiet operation, instant start, low weight, battery shared across the wider Greenworks tool line. Owners complain about: plastic deck feels light, the grass bag is small and needs frequent emptying, and it bogs down in tall or wet growth — several reviewers note you have to mow before the lawn gets away from you.
3. WORX WG779 40V 14″ — Best Lightweight Pick
The lightest powered mower here by a clear margin, and the one that comes up most often in reviews written by older gardeners and people with small city lots. Two 20V batteries run in series to make 40V, which means the packs also fit the wider WORX 20V range. Owners praise: genuinely easy to push and lift, simple single-lever height change, tidy storage footprint. Owners complain about: the 14-inch deck makes a mid-size lawn slow, runtime is modest at around 30 to 40 minutes, and the mulching plug is fiddly to swap.
4. CRAFTSMAN M215 — Best Gas Mower
The case for gas has narrowed, but it has not disappeared. In owner reviews of larger and rougher yards, the recurring theme is that a 140cc engine simply does not care whether the grass is tall, damp or full of seed heads, and refueling takes seconds. Owners praise: strong cutting in heavy growth, no-prime starting, useful front-wheel drive, sensible price for a self-propelled 21-inch machine. Owners complain about: the usual gas tax — oil changes, winter storage, pull-starting, and noise loud enough that OSHA's workplace threshold for hearing-damage risk, around 85 decibels, is a reasonable comparison point — plus a handful of reports of front-wheel drive losing traction on wet slopes when the bag is full.
5. Sun Joe MJ401E — Best Budget Buy
One of the highest review counts of any mower on Amazon, and the reason is straightforward: it costs about as much as a decent pair of pruners and it cuts grass. Corded means unlimited runtime and no battery to degrade, at the price of managing an extension cord. Owners praise: unbeatable price, nothing to maintain, very light, folds flat. Owners complain about: the cord is a genuine nuisance around trees and beds, the 14-inch deck is small, height adjustment requires moving the wheels, and the plastic build feels its price. Best suited to a lawn you can reach with 100 feet of cord.
6. American Lawn Mower 1204-14 — Best Manual Mower
A reel mower is a different proposition, and reviews split cleanly along one line: people who mow small, flat lawns frequently love it, and everybody else does not. Cut properly it gives a scissor cut that is cleaner than any rotary blade. Owners praise: silence, zero running cost, light enough to hang on a wall, oddly enjoyable to use. Owners complain about: it will not cut tall or laid-over grass, it skips stems like dandelion stalks, it is hard work on any slope, and the blades need periodic adjusting and sharpening to keep cutting cleanly.
What Owners Actually Complain About
Across all six, the same five gripes dominate the negative reviews, and none of them are brand-specific. Runtime shortfall tops the list — buyers who sized a battery to their yard on paper and found tall spring growth halved it. Bagging wet grass is second: every bagging mower here clogs if you cut damp, and owners who mulch instead report far fewer problems. Height adjustment stiffness shows up on the cheaper models, where levers seize with grass debris. Deck rust and underside caking appear in year-two and year-three reviews on gas and steel-deck machines that were never rinsed out. And dull blades misread as weak motors is the most common self-inflicted one — a striking number of one-star reviews about a mower "losing power" are followed by an edited five-star update after the owner sharpened or replaced the blade.
How to Choose the Right Mower
Work backwards from your yard. Under 1/8 acre and flat? The Sun Joe corded or the WORX 14-inch will be faster to use and easier to store than anything bigger. Up to a third of an acre? The Greenworks 16-inch is the value answer, and the one most people over-spend past. A quarter to half an acre, or any real slope? Buy 21 inches with self-propelled drive — the EGO is our pick, and you will not regret the drive system. Half an acre or more of rough, tall growth? Gas, and the CRAFTSMAN M215 is the sensible price point.
Two extras are worth planning for at purchase. A second battery costs less than the frustration of stopping halfway; and a spare blade so you always have a sharp one on the mower. Then set the deck higher than feels natural — Penn State Extension recommends 2 inches or above for most lawns — since most lawn problems trace back to mowing too short, which our mowing height guide explains in detail.
The Verdict
For the best balance of cutting power, drive quality and battery life across a typical American yard, the EGO Power+ LM2135SP is the mower the owner-review record supports most strongly. Small-yard owners should save their money and take the Greenworks 40V 16-inch; big, rough yards are still gas territory with the CRAFTSMAN M215. Whichever you choose, keep the blade sharp and the deck high — that matters more to how your lawn looks than the badge on the machine.
Next: pair it with a feeding schedule in best lawn fertilizer, thicken thin turf with overseeding, or read the full lawn care hub.