Which lawn mower to buy?

TriciaB

Our son has just moved to a house with a medium sized garden and it's mostly grassed. As it's a long garden it probably needs him to have a petrol mower - it would need a very long cable for an electric mower and there's no power outside the house. We would be grateful for recommendations for reliable mowers and not too pricey. We are buying it as a moving in present. I've just talked to him and he says he would like a robot mower as a friend has one which cuts his grass very well. I have just told OH about this and he is not impressed! Maybe someone can tell me that this would in fact work, but recommendations for a conventional mower is what we really need I think. Thanks.

Doghouse Riley

How interested is he in gardening?

You mentioned his interest shown in a robot mower,  made me ask the question.

Conventional mowers are mostly used  by people who love gardening, spend their time keeping their lawns looked after and like seeing the "stripes," which need a degree of care to achieve.

If he is this way inclined then there's plenty of petrol ones from which to choose from between £150 and £200. These of course will require some maintenance.

If like me, he finds garden "housekeeping," which for me is mowing,  is a bit of a chore, then why not a mains rotary?  

As for no power in the garden, there's lots of other gardening activities which might need a power outlet at some time in the future and possibly that shouldn't be  influencing the choice of mower at the moment.

I've always used Flymos

My present one is an Ultraglide, I've had it for over seven years,  it  has a big fan at the back that  blowes all the cut grass into the box. Never been any bother, but not everyone likes therm. Plastic doesn't rust if it's not cleaned regularly.

There's no reason an extension cord can't be used with a mower,  I use one myself, plugged into a socket in the shed, as my blower/vac's cable won't allow me to reach the bottom of the garden.

For the time being he could use a socket in the house and hang the cord out of a window, until he can get a suitable socket installed.

There's a lot of reviews  and practical demonstrations of all sorts of mowers including robot ones, on Youtube, which I think might help you make a decision.

Fran IOM

@TriciaB If you put Battery Powered Lawnmowers in Search there is a lot of information there which may help you. 

KT53

The majority of robot mowers are over £1000. 

Allotment Boy

I think battery powered mowers are the way to go now.  The technology has improved a lot recently.  The GW website should have reviews., garden Which test all types of mowers. 
As mentioned already robot mowers are very pricy,  will need external power to the docking station,  and a guide wire installed to tell it where the limits are. 
If you really want petrol then Mountfield are good value.

BenCotto

Putting ‘best buy’ and ‘medium sized lawn’ into Which? search filters, six of the seven results were cordless battery powered models with prices ranging from £320 to £1120. The makers were Bosch, Stihl x2, John Deere, Cobra and Honda. I can give specific model numbers if you’re interested.

The seventh mower in the list was Bosch Rotak 550 electric model costing £180.

Petrol models are more suited to larger lawns and Best Buy models in this category are mostly priced £350 to £800+.

My lawn is quite large and on a slope so I have a self propelled petrol Honda mower with rear roller (I do like stripes). It is a true workhorse, good for years of use but Honda models are not cheap and the current list price is around £1100.

Even if your budget stretches to the £600+ for a robot mower, I think they work best on regular shaped lawns which mine certainly is not. And you don’t get stripes. However two models that Which recommends are Flymo 1200K and Bosch Indego M700.

Hostafan1

When I ran my own gardening business , I always bought Hondas . We'd be using them for up to 6 hours a day, and they never let us down. 
I've still got one which I bought second hand 25 years ago . I've never had it serviced and it's still working .

nick615

We've got quite large lawns and have concentrated on petrol rotary, after getting totally fed up with trying to juggle an electric one's cable.  I'm hopeless mechanically, so recommend you stick to a Briggs & Stratton engine for reliability, and servicing even I can master once per year.  The German supermarkets sometimes have them 'on offer', fully guaranteed, and that's where we go.

Fairygirl

Medium - means different things to different people too. 
I'm not surprised your OH thinks he's  a chancer @TriciaB
I used a bog standard mower for a fairly large grassed area at the previous house, just using an extension cable, as it was a fair distance from a power source. It was probably around 50m x 50 m, or more,   [irregular though] and on a slope. We also had a petrol mower for other areas. 

Pete.8

I used to have a really nice lawn and had a 22" Atco petrol cylinder mower.
Then I got a dog..
Since when the lawn is rather uneven and about 10 years ago I bought a Hayter Spirit 41.
I've had no problems with it over the years. I give it an oil change every other year, change the spark plug and clean the air filter.
It has a Briggs and Stratton engine which has been around forever.
The lawn covers about 100ft x 30ft
https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/product/hayter-spirit-41-push-rear-roller-lawnmower-617/
or the same model with a powered rear roller (so you don't' have to push the mower)
https://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/product/hayter-spirit-41-autodrive-rear-roller-petrol-lawnmower-619/

I've been using Super Unleaded in it for years as the current standard petrol (E10) is not suitable for lawn mowers and garden equipment

Nanny Beach

With 150  feet,of grass on just one lawn, we had a mountfield petrol. Now maybe 100 foot,but lots of different area,a Bosch electric, which I wouldn't recommend anymore. They are now thrown together in China,an extension lead. I also have a qualcast push hand mower,I use of in-between time and on the uneven grass verge. Guy next door has a battery mower,very uneven grass it's useless,and he's an electrical engineer working on the railway system
 Mother in law has one also useless,no idea what models they have. Yes,a picture of the lawn and size would be useful
 We had quarter of acre,and according to the RSPCA that's Medium. Of course, for a serious gardener,a Honda is the gold standard!