It's worth your time to research the latest mowing products, but it isn’t easy. There are upwards of 200 mowers on the market and tens of styles. 

Mower reviews abound on the Internet, but it can be difficult to tell which are independent and which are placed by advertisers. There are no recent books that discuss how to shop for a lawn mower, though there are some good ones on repair. Anyway, mower technology is changing quickly, with new materials, lower emissions, quieter operation, and greater operator safety in the pipeline.

So where do homeowners turn for credible, up-to-date, independent mower evaluations? Consumer Reports unquestionably offers the broadest range of reviews. Consumer Reports’ website provides extensive testing details and consumer ratings on 76 lawn tractors, 46 push mowers, and 63 self-propelled mowers. Reviews include repair and reliability records. (Read on for more about CR.)

But there are others.

TodaysMower.com offers in-depth reviews by Paul Sikemma, an outdoor machinery expert. Sikemma carefully explains his policies and review process on the site.  

TheSweetHome.com offers lawnmower reviews, among many other home products. ConsumerSearch.com does the same. 

Another independent source is Popular Mechanics and its’ Best Mowers of the Year articles. A keyword search on the site produces articles on both lawn mower selection and individual mower reviews.  

A few sites specialize in environmentally friendly mowers. For Manual reel mowers: Check out the “mow environmentally” tab on People Powered Machines.

To find quiet, energy-efficient mowers, visit Green Station Products. They review residential, commercial and heavy-duty commercial equipment.

Consumer Reports

The May 2015 print edition of Consumer Reports offers ratings of gas self-propelled mowers (multispeed and single speed), lawn tractors (wide-deck, zero-turn, rear-engine), gas push mowers, battery-powered electrics, and corded electric.

The CR website has two levels: free and paid. At the free level, you’ll find synopses of more than 150 machines. If you like video, Consumer Reports’ free site offers a video guide to lawn tractors. They also have a video lawn mower and tractor buying guide that includes robotic lawn mowers.

But Consumer Reports doesn't offer much information on how to match the terrain with the equipment. The next logical stop is often manufacturers’ sites. Most offer both educational and marketing material and an array of models. Even within a single product line the sorting process can be overwhelming.

Take the case of John Deere Company. Deere’s products occupy about half of the top spots in Consumer Reports’ lawn tractor evaluations, including conventional deck, wide-deck and zero-turn mowers. If you’re shopping for a Deere product for residential use, however, there are 51 options offered. To narrow the field, the company offers an online selection tool for riding mowers. It helps sort Deere’s residential products by five major characteristics.  

Almost all manufacturer's websites offer selection help for consumers, from filtered searches to comparison grids.

The job of mowing is hardly uniform across properties. Different mowers are better for one job than another, so it pays to take time selecting the right one for your yard, your budget, and your environmental preferences. Using the sources above, you may be better equipped to make a good decision.