This is a question that any home owner with a lawn asks when he or she needs to purchase a new mower. A question like this demands that certain information be collected in order to determine the best lawn mower for your situation. For example: how big is your lawn? How often do you have to cut it? Does it consist of just grass - no weeds or other cutting-challenging plants? How much room do you have to store a mower? Can you safely store gas?
If you have a very small lawn, perhaps an old-fashioned, push reel mower would do the job for you. These are pushed by hand - you provide the energy - and they can do a good job as well as provide you with exercise. They are cheap, easy to maintain, store quite easily, and are quiet.
Power Reel Mower
If you have a small lawn, perhaps an electric lawn mower would be ideal. In this case you would not have to worry about storing gas or probably the biggest problem that most gas mower owners face - starting the mower. No start-up problems with an electric, so long as it is plugged in, it will work just fine. There are even cordless electric lawn mowers and with the higher battery voltages available today (36 volts), they now have the power to cut as well as a gas mower. Electrics are clean - no gas or smoke smell, many owners say they sound like vacuum cleaners, so they have a more acceptable level of noise. Most electrics fold up quite nicely for easy storage. And you don't have to handle gasoline so the smell of gas will never be on your hands.
If you have a larger lawn say up to a 1/4 of an acre, an electric might cut it if it is a well manicured lawn. If you have some problem areas with weeds, maybe you ought to consider a gas lawn mower. These require adequate storage such as a garage or an out building. You will be storing gasoline so make sure you have the proper containers and that they are tightly sealed.
Lawns above a quarter of an acre, the best lawn mower would probably be a ride on lawn mower unless you really want to spend a lot of time walking with a push lawn mower. Riding mowers come in a variety of sizes and in the belly of the beast are the mower blades. Some blades can cut a path as wide as 52 inches, so the cutting of an acre is done in about an hour.
Many riding mowers have attachments which may be purchased such as snow plows, snow throwers, lawn aerating, etc. So they maybe considered as being (small) tractors.
Determining which is the best lawn mower for you starts with the amount of work or the size of the lawn that you need to cut. There are many choices as to lawn mowers and there is no need to buy one that is too much for your situation. Simpler is better.