With so many lawn mower models on the market and such a wide range of brands, choosing a mower for your garden can be a tricky task. Not only that, there are also four main types of mower available, at hugely varying prices and all with different features that need to be considered:
- Corded electric mowers are generally in the mid-price range and are relatively light and quiet. You’ll need a charging point and possibly an extension cord and the electric cable can get in the way. Take a look at our pick of the best electric lawn mowers.
- Battery-powered cordless lawn mowers are the newest type of mower and are the most lightweight and manoeuvrable. You need to remember to keep the battery charged and they can be more expensive than corded mowers, although prices are coming down. Check out our pick of the best cordless mowers.
- Push mowers are cheap and manually powered, so they’re the most eco-friendly mower you can buy but, they can be hard work for the user, particularly if strength and mobility are an issue. Read our round up of the best hand push mowers.
- Robotic mowers automatically mow your lawn. Set to a regular mowing schedule a robot mower constantly clips the lawn, saving you the job and keeping it neat and tidy. However, they are the most expensive type of mower on the market – even budget options will set you back about £500. Learn more with our tests of the best robotic mowers.
Powerful petrol lawn mowers are also available, but they tend to be loud, heavy and are less environmentally-friendly. They also need an annual maintenance check up and a supply of petrol and oil.
To help you choose the right mower for your garden, we’ve brought together our top picks of our award winning Best Buy mowers from our reviews, including the best cordless mowers, the best electric, the best robotic mowers and the best hand push mowers, all tested by our experts.
Every mower has scored a minimum of 4.5 out of 5 overall, so you can be assured you’re looking at one of the best machines in its category, and each has a list of pros and cons, so you can see straight away what the stand out features or issues are with each mower.
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For more help with lawn care, take a look at our reviews of the best strimmers and the best aerators, or check out our guide to the best lawn edging.
Lawn mower Buyer’s Guide – video
Follow our tips to find the right lawn mower for you
Best lawn mowers at a glance:
- Best cordless mower for ease of use 2023: Husqvarna Aspire LC34 P4A
- Best cordless mower for ease of use 2024: Webb Eco WEV20X2LM43B4X 40V cordless mower
- Best cordless mower for very small lawns and allotments: Powerbase 20V City mower
- Best cordless mower for budget: Greenworks GDG24LM33
- Best cordless mower for small to medium lawns 2022: Yard Force LMG37A
- Best budget electric mower: Mountfield Electress 38
- Best electric mower all round: Webb WEER33
- Best budget hand push mower: Webb 30cm Autoset sidewheel
- Best hand push mower all round: Gardena Comfort Hand Cylinder 400C
- Best robotic mower for performance: Stihl iMOW 5
- Best robotic mower for wire free mowing: Segway Navimow i105E
- Best robotic mower for installation and features: Worx Landroid Vision L1300 WR213E
Best lawn mowers to buy in 2024
Husqvarna Aspire LC34-P4A
RRP: £349
Our rating: 4.9 out of 5
Available from Just Lawnmowers (£249), Cordless Power (£249)
Pros:
- Quiet
- Cuts even long grass with ease
- Battery level visible while mowing
- Small and compact for easy storage
- Part of the POWER FOR ALL cordless range
Cons:
- Only four cutting heights
- 95 minutes charge time
Part of the new Husqvarna Aspire cordless range, which includes a hedge trimmer, pruner and leaf blower, this 34cm mower is powered by an 18V POWER FOR ALL ALLIANCE battery and charger. These are interchangeable with tools in other leading brands such as Flymo, Gardena and Bosch so if you also invest in tools in these ranges, you’ll only need to buy the bare tool and won’t have different batteries and chargers taking up space in the shed.
Great for small gardens the mower comes ready to go, there’s no assembly or handles to attach, and it folds down to a compact size when you’re finished, with a telescopic handle that folds completely flat over the body of the mower. It can then be stood up against a wall or hung up, and even comes with a handy hook. The 30l grass bag also flattens down to take up very little room and can be hung on the mower. The Aspire is light, with a carry handle so that lifting it up steps or into other areas is easy and it has an adjustable handle to suit different height users. It’s comfortable and easy to manoeuvre around the garden and has just four cutting heights to choose from, ranging from 25-65mm and changed easily with a single lever on the body of the mower. It cuts grass quietly and smoothly and has an automatic boost that increases blade speed when you’re mowing in tougher, longer areas that works well. You can hear it kick in when you push the mower into longer grass and unlike other cordless mowers that can cut out, just carries on cutting the grass. While you mow the battery charge level is always clearly visible so you know how much battery you have left and when it needs charging. It comes with a two year warranty and we awarded it a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy in 2023 for ease of use.
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Webb Eco WEV20X2LM43B4X 40V cordless mower
RRP: £269.99
Our rating: 4.8/5
Available from Marshalls and FFX
Pros
- Quiet, comfortable, and smooth to handle
- Long run time
- Great for storage
- Spare parts available
Cons
- Battery level not visible when mowing
- No safety plug
Easy to put together, this mower just needs the handle attaching and the 50L fabric grass bag has already been assembled. There’s a choice of three handle heights and it double folds snugly over the mower so it takes up very little space in storage. The two 20V 4Ah batteries have a charge indicator on the end and although there’s no way of seeing this when the mower’s in use, the approximately 60 minute run time means there’s time to finish the cutting of most small to medium lawns. The handle is padded for comfort and this mower is smooth and easy to push, even over longer, bumpier lawns. It cut very well in our test and the six heights of cut, from 25-75mm are easy to adjust with a single lever. At 96db the mower is reasonably quiet and we awarded it a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy award for ease of use.It also feels durable and sturdy with spare parts readily available from Webb and it comes with a three year warranty.
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Powerbase 20V City mower
RRP: £119
Our rating: 4.8/5
Available from Homebase
Pros
- Small and light to lift and use
- Great for storage
- Pivotal handle easy to manoevre
- Surprisingly powerful for such a small mower cutting long grass well
- Battery level visible when mowing +USB charging option
- Long run time
Cons
- Limited use
- Only 3 cutting heights
Awarded a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy for very small lawns and allotments this little mower is light, compact and easy to manoeuvre. It’s ideal for the regular cutting of small areas of grass or for keeping the paths on your allotment in trim. Minimal assembly’s needed, you just screw the handle together and into the body and once the battery is charged it’s ready to go. It has a cutting width of 21.5cm and just three cutting heights, from 30 – 50mm and rather than collecting the clippings, this mower mulches, dropping them back onto the lawn where they break down and fertilise the grass – so you don’t need to spend time emptying a grass bag and your grass gets fed. A pivoting handle helps it get into tight spots really easily and it also copes surprisingly well with bumpy ground and long grass. This is a powerful little mower with an impressive battery run time of 50 minutes. While you’re mowing, the battery charge is clearly displayed on the mower and the battery can not only be charged by the included charger but it has a USB charge point too for ease. It comes with a three year warranty.
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Greenworks GDG24LM33
RRP: £219.99
Our rating: 4.5 out of 5
Available from Amazon (£179), Currys (£179), Tooled Up (£179.95), B&Q (£179.99)
Pros:
- Easy to assemble and use
- Comfortable padded handle
- Choice of mulching or collecting clippings
- Interchangeable battery with Greenworks 24V family
Cons:
- Short handle for taller users
- Struggles on long grass
Ideal for smaller gardens this sturdy, great value cordless mower is easy to put together, well thought out and simple to use. Thanks to a padded handle it’s comfortable to push, although it did feel a little short for our taller tester, and it’s light and easy to manoeuvre around trees and beds and borders. There are five cutting heights to choose from, adjusted with the simple lift of a lever and it offers the choice of collecting clippings in the 30 litre fabric grass bag or inserting the mulching plug and leaving them on the lawn to break down and feed the grass. It mows well but doesn’t like very long grass, with the battery cutting out occasionally but its long lasting brushless motor offers a a decent run time of 46 minutes and it charges in two hours. Plus, as part of the Greenworks 24V family, both the battery and charger are interchangeable with all the other tools in the range, saving you money if you invest in more in the future. We awarded it a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy for the best budget cordless mower in 2023.
Specs: Battery: charge time – 120 mins; run time – 46mins. Cutting: width – 33cm; height – 25-70mm. Grass box – 30 litre.
- Buy now from Amazon (£119.99) and Robert Dyas (£149)
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Yard Force LMG37A 40v 37cm cordless lawn mower
RRP: £259.99
Our rating: 4.8 out of 5
Available from Amazon (£229.99), B&Q (£229.99), OnBuy (£259.99)
Pros:
- Rear roller
- Double folding handle for easy storage
- Quickest charge time
- Part of the Yard Force GR40 cordless range
Cons:
- Assembly slower than some
This sturdy mower has a 37cm cutting width and useful features including a rear roller for those much desired stripes. Awarded a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy for small to medium lawns, clippings are collected in the large 40 Litre fabric grass bag, it offers a wide range of seven cutting heights, from 25-75mm and is easy to fold away at the end of the day. The 40V battery is quick to charge, taking just 50 minutes and when full it has the capacity to cut a 400m2 lawn.
Buy the Yard Force LMG37A 40V 37cm cordless mower from Yard Force, Amazon and Wickes
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RRP: £159
Our rating: 4.75 out of 5
Available from ManoMano (£169), Just Lawnmowers (£169), B&Q (£177.65)
Pros:
- Light, quiet and manoeuvrable
- Cut, collect or mulch
- Rear roller and anti-scalp plate
- Easy to adjust
Cons:
- Collector slightly fiddly to assemble
This mower is powerful yet surprisingly quiet and our testers found a number of the additional features useful. There’s a mulching option, rear roller, vision window in the grass collector to check levels and more. There’s also a choice of six cutting heights and our experts found that the mower handles well on the job.
Read the full review: Mountfield Princess 34 review
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Webb WEER 33 electric corded mower
RRP: £99
Our rating: 4.8 out of 5
Available from Wickes (£99), OnBuy (£99.95), Tooled Up (£99.95), Toolstation (£99.98), B&Q (£99.99)
Pros
- Comfortable and easy to use
- Cable relief clip for safety
- Great features
- Cuts efficiently
- Cuts to the edge
Cons
- Black cable hard to see
This mower is well thought out with excellent features. It’s easy to assemble and folds for storage with a comfortable, foam handle which can be adjusted to a variety of heights. There are five cutting heights to choose from and these are easily changed by a single lever. The grass collection bag has a generous 35L capacity and a full indicator that lets you know when it needs emptying. The mower is relatively quiet and it cuts well, right up to the edge. It’s lightweight and comfortable to manoeuvre and our only quibble is the black mower cable, which could be a brighter colour so it’s easier to see. For just £99.99, this is a great value mower.
Read the full Webb WEER 33 electric corded mower review
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Webb 30cm Autoset sidewheel
RRP: £99.99
Our rating: 4.8 out of 5
Pros:
- Comfortable to push and hold
- Cuts all grass smoothly and tightly
- Front loading grass bag catches clippings well
- Quiet
Cons:
- Short cutting width
Easy to put together and use this simple hand push mower is comfortable, thanks to rubber grip handles, even when pushing over longer grass. It has six cylinder blades offering four cutting heights that are easy to change. The mower cuts from 40mm right down to 10mm, so it gives a precise, neat clip but also cuts longer grass well. It’s quiet, copes with even bumpy ground easily and the 17 litre front collector was the best at collecting clippings in our test. We gave it a BBC GardenersWorld Magazine Best Buy for the best budget push mower in 2023.
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RRP: £139
Our rating: 4.5 out of 5
Available from Tooled Up (£136.95)
Pros:
- Easy height-of-cut adjuster
- Large grass collector that catches clippings well
- Feels sturdy and well designed
- Cuts well
Cons:
- Heavy
- Grass collector is sold separately
- There’s more to assemble on this model than with other hand push mowers but our testers found that the instructions were clear to follow. The comfortable-to-use handle also folds easily for storage. In use, the mower feels sturdy and our experts thought it was well-designed, although the 49 litre grass collector has to be purchased separately. There’s a warranty of two years on this model.
Read the full Gardena Comfort hand mower review
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Stihl iMOW 5
RRP: £1699
Our rating: 4.8/5
Pros
- Easy to set up on app
- Wide range of cutting heights and cuts even longer grass well
- Quiet
- Good features including rain sensor, anti-stuck and 40% slope capacity
- Long warranty
Cons
- Need to be tech/app savvy
- No mobile connectivity for price
- Installation kit sold separately
The iMow 5 is the smallest in a new range of six robotic mowers from Stihl that cover three sizes of larger garden – 1500m2, 300m2 and 500m2. Together with the iMow 5,6 and 7 there is also the iMow EVO range that covers the same size lawns with the same features but also has mobile connectivity, allowing you to connect to your mower even when you’re not at home.
When you purchase an iMow you have the choice of instalment by a Stihl approved dealer (the cost of this will depend on the size of your garden), or installing it yourself and purchasing an additional installation kit. To cut down on waste, different size installation kits are available and as well as the standard fixing pins which hold the wires in place, there’s also the option to purchase bio pins, made from 100% biodegradable material that gradually break down in the soil. Like many robotic mowers the iMow requires a boundary wire around the perimeter of the lawn and a guide wire through the middle of the lawn to help it find its way back to the docking station. The mower comes with a clear instruction booklet plus there are helpful guides on the Stihl website if you need them, and laying the wires in our 1250m2 test garden took 3-4 hours. When laying the wires, it’s worth noting that the boundary wire needs to be 37cm from paths, a deck or fence, unless they’re level with the lawn and then it can be right up against them and 100cm from a pond. You also need a clear 2m area straight in front of the docking station for the guide wire and 37cm either side before you start laying the wires.
Once the wires are laid, it’s easy to programme the mower via its app – as long as you’re comfortable with this kind of tech. There’s no control panel as such on the new iMows, so there’s no need to bend over a control panel to set mowing times, heights and zones etc. All of this is programmed through the My iMow app, which is pretty simple and intuitive to use, but only works via your own wifi at home, if it reaches into your garden, or by Bluetooth when you’re standing next to the mower. There are also four large control buttons on the mower that allow you to stop, start, unlock, and send the mower home without using the app, and an info button that talks to you and gives you status updates.
Like many other robotic mowers, the iMow has three free-swinging blades and it cuts very well. The lawn was quite long before it was installed but with an impressively wide cutting height range of 20-60mm it didn’t struggle, and after a few days the whole lawn looked good with no tufts of uncut grass and it continues to look good. Unlike the Husqvarna Automower, once you’ve laid the boundary wire you can’t completely alter mowing zones and would have to lift and relay to change this, but you can divide your lawn into zones by directing the mower to only mow on one side of the guide wire. It cuts close to the edge so there’s no need to tidy up afterwards and if it comes across an obstacle, it gently bumps into it and then turns away. It also has a feature that helps it manoeuvre out of a situation if it does get stuck, it can cope with slopes of 40 %, has an anti-theft alarm and a rain sensor feature, which you can adjust that interrupts, or does not start, mowing if it’s raining. You can choose what degree of rain you want it to mow in and when the sensor on the top of the mower dries it automatically begins mowing.
The iMow comes with a five year warranty and there are a host of accessories available including spare wire, pins and clips, a sun canopy for the docking station and upgrade wheels for the EVO range to enable them to cut slopes of up to 60%.
For the size of larger lawn it cuts, this is a reasonably priced mower that’s packed with features and cuts very well. We are particularly impressed with the range of cutting heights, its ability to cut longer grass and the simplicity of its design and awarded it a BBC Gardeners’’ World Magazine Best Buy for performance.
Buy the Stihl iMOW 5 from a Stihl approved dealer
Segway Navimow i105E
RRP: £949
Our rating: 4.8 out of 5
Available from Navimow (£949)
Pros
- At 58 dB, it’s almost silent when cutting
- More than enough cable to position the GPS antenna included
- The app offers live help and features
- Cuts in straight lines so fewer tufts are left behind
Cons
- The default light settings are far too bright
- You need to find a place for a large GPS antenna in your garden
- It makes a lot of unnecessary beeping noises until you turn them off
The latest addition to Navimow’s fleet of robot lawn mowers has built on the success of the previous H series. They’ve listened to criticism and tweaked this new mower to work better in the garden with easy setup and impressive features. Because of this we’ve awarded the i105N a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy award for wire free lawn mowing. Not only is the GPS that helps guide it around the garden( the Exact Fusion Location System ) the upgraded 2.0 version, its camera technology can detect and avoid all sorts of obstacles in the garden.
It’s a simple addition, but you now get 20 metres of antenna and power cable, which makes placement of the GPS receiver much simpler, and all without the need to buy extra wires. The app can also help you to find the ideal place to position both the GPS antenna and the charging station in your garden.
They’ve kept in our favourite features, like the brilliant app that lets you drive the mower around like a remote control car to define the shape of your lawn. You can also watch the mower work in real time, and it lets you know immediately if there are any problems. The mower also checks the weather via the internet and adjusts the mowing program accordingly. The i105N model can happily cut moderate sized gardens up to 500 m², and thanks to the large orange wheels with an aggressive tread pattern, it can cope with slopes up to 30%. The quality of cut is just as good as the previous mower, but now comes with a class-leading 20 – 60 mm range of cut depth. It still cuts the lawn in pleasing straight lines as well, which helps to avoid untouched tufts of grass.
Buy the Segway Navimow i105E from Navimow
Worx Landroid Vision L1300 WR213E
RRP: £2199.99
Our rating: 4.5/5
- Buy now from Homebase (£2199.99), Amazon (£2199.99)
Pros
- No boundary cable to install or GPS antennae to deal with
- Cuts as close to the boundary as possible with a robot mower
- It cuts lawns up to 1300 m²
- You can control multiple Landroid mowers via the app
Cons
- A significant expense for a lawn mower
A rather astonishing leap forward in robotic mowing technology, the Worx Landroid mower does away with boundary cables and tricky GPS receivers and uses cameras and AI technology to mow your lawn instead. We awarded it a BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Best Buy for installation and features. This big and futuristic looking mower is installed in seconds and connects to your phone or tablet via the Landroid app, although you can also control most of the functions via the onboard LCD screen and dial if you like. Using cameras rather than boundary wires, it knows where your lawn ends, keeps an eye out for obstacles, and even avoids hitting wildlife or pets. The cutting height ranges from 30 – 60 mm and you can adjust this via the app or the LCD screen, but the Landroid also self-levels the cutting deck to ensure that uneven ground is cut properly. The three blades underneath are offset, allowing the mower to cut close to the edge of hard boundaries and big knobbly wheels help the mower keep a good grip on slopes up to 35%. It cuts to an excellent finish and after a few days mowing, there are no tufts or patches of uncut grass. It creates its own mowing schedule to suit the time of year and uses a standard Worx battery that you might find on one of their drills or saws. Packed with features and clever technology, the only thing that might put you off is the price. However, it’s capable of tackling huge gardens up to 1,300 m², so it’s ideal for very large lawns, and could even replace a ride on lawnmower. The mower comes with a two year warranty that can be extended to three years.
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This review was last updated in July 2024. We apologise if anything has changed in price or availability.