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My favorite thing about this simple lawn mower is that it’s easy to adjust the height. There is a learning curve so be patient if you don’t get it right away. I prefer a reel mower because it’s easy to maintain, store and use. My lawn was a little overgrown but this still got it pretty good. When I did the edges with a weed whacker and a couple patches that wear too tall I chopped the tops before I used the mower. I set it pretty high since my lawn was neglected and it did great. Very easy to push. Will last many years and very easy to maintain. Will recommend to others.

I bought this a year ago after doing a lot of research on various web sites, and it's met all my expectations. I get a good work out using it to mow the yard, so I can feel as if I'm killing two birds with one stone. It isn't too heavy for me to push (I'm an average-height, lighter-weight woman), and I don't have any trouble repositioning it at the end of a row. I also love how little space it takes up in the garage. I've found the reviews I’ve read about reel mowers in general were right about a few things: 1) They’ll choke on twigs, pieces of mulch, walnut shell halves the squirrels leave behind, etc. So you have to be patient about having your momentum stopped while you pick out whatever it is that’s gotten stuck on a blade. 2) They work best on a yard that’s relatively level. 3) They’re much quieter than a power one. 4) They aren’t going to give your lawn that manicured look you get with a gas or electric mower (see photos). I get around this by hiring a lawn service to come mow and edge once a month or so. Finally, using a reel mower on grass that’s too tall may bring one of Eddie Izzard’s monologues from “Glorious,” to mind: “We had the big lawn mower. It was much better than my grandad's. It was a Pushmi-pullyu, related to the cleaning equipment. My grandad had that little triangle of lawn. Hod-de-de-de-de. Hod-de-de-de-de. Hod-de-de-de-de. The grass would go, ‘Oh, for f***'s sake.’ Hod-de-de-de-de. Hod-de-de-de-de. ‘Stay down, lads. Stay down. It's just an air raid. No problem.’ Hod-de-de-de-de. He'd flatten the lawn out. Put it away. They'd go ‘f-thum’ as he was walking away.” I’ve been happy with my Great States reel mower. I’ve used it almost every week for a summer and a half, and I haven’t had to sharpen or adjust the blades yet. The company was very responsive when I needed to replace one of the fasteners (these should be hand tightened each time before mowing because they loosen up and may fall off as the mower is used). Instructions for assembly were clear enough for this non-technical, non-mechanically-minded person to follow, though I found that attaching the handlebar to the mower was a two-person job because I didn’t have the hand strength to do it myself. The rubber padding on the handlebar is starting to crack and split (see photos), but that’s probably to be expected. If I were to buy another reel mower, I’d buy a Great States again because I’ve been happy with the quality of the one I have, but I’d buy a wider one. I chose the narrower model because I was concerned about the weight and maneuverability of the wider model. But I’ve discovered these mowers aren’t heavy or awkward, and the need to overlap the rows when mowing means I don’t get the full 15 inches of blade width with each row. However, I anticipate the mower I bought will last a long, long time. Photo 1: The left half has been mowed with the reel mower, the right half (the neighbor's yard) was mowed with a power mower a few days before Photo 3: The left half has been mowed with the reel mower, the right half hasn't been mowed yet Photos 2 & 4: The wear on the rubber padding after about a season's worth of mowing

I have no desire to be "organic" or to adopt some weird hipster method for cutting my lawn. I use some legitimate equipment on my lawn that is just too brutal on some areas of my lawn. Getting tired of 100 point turns and super spins from my zero-turn mower ripping up my grass. I was looking for a solution to allow my lawn to grow back in some spots that have gotten a little too beaten up by my lawnmower. So, I considered a push reel mower. But I had some major hesitations. There's so many videos and photos out there of people's lawns looking like garbage after using this thing. But I took the gamble and bought it and I'm glad I did so far. I figured "that guy in the video has grass that's 8 inches high. There's no way it's the mower's fault" or "look at this dope butchering his lawn on the lowest setting." Sure enough, I was right. I keep a very well manicured lawn. This was supposed to be my easy quick fix for hitting a few strips of property that are tricky to get to. However, I found myself hitting nearly the whole lawn with it today after assembly and it looks great. It can't beat the striping and the even cut of my zero turn mower, but it does a pretty darn good job for what I need it for and if you are cool with frequent cuts and leaving behind grass clippings, you'll like this thing. It can be used by a lawn manicurist, not just some hippie that would rather be brewing his coffee with a french press and looking at his record collection. I cut my lawn to 3 inches plus, but the highest setting of 2 3/4 inches is just fine for the area I'm doing. It's the setting I would recommend. It does require an easy adjustment. Build quality seem acceptable for a 100 dollar piece of equipment. However, it's engineered terribly. They basically send you two left sides to a handle. And this is actually an issue if you want to fasten the wing nuts/bolt in the same direction on both sides of the handle. Because the left handle is basically the right handle upside down, the bolt no longer fits inside of a dimple in the handle frame. So you're left with two choices: bolting one bolt and wing nut upside down and one right side up, or muscling one of the wing nuts so hard that you make your own dimple in the frame. I chose the second option and don't think I'd do it that way as the wing nut doesn't seem to like that much force. After reviewing some photos of other peoples' mowers on here, I can tell they had the same issue. The manual touches upon this in Chinglish. But in reality it's a lazy design flaw. But back to the positive. I love that I can just grab this from a corner of my garage and quickly do some touchup work with it. I love that it's light. I have an acre of land and prefer to pick up clippings, but if I had 1/4 of an acre or less I would totally use this thing every few cuts for a quick trim. And again, it's perfect for touchup work. It would be even better if the blades didn't sit between the wheels. I'd like it to be able to do edge work better. It looks like some models that Fiskars makes have the wheels behind the blades so that the blades cut to the very edge. You'll understand this gentle complaint once you start using this. If you want to cut up against a garden bed, you need to put the wheel in the garden bed. And if the garden bed is raised a bit, you're stuck with a lousy cut along that bed. Those models with the wheels behind the blades rather than sandwiching the blades sound like an option I would explore. Better, pneumatic tires would be really nice too for lawn work. Oh...this thing chokes on pinecones big time. At the highest setting it goes over sprinkler heads with no problem, so I figured it would clear a pinecone. Nope. Won't do that again.

My Uncle had one these long ago. It took my whole body to try to move it. He left it in the rain and it was covered in rust and so friggin heavy. I hated the thought of getting one of these for my own yard. All my life I've had gas lawn mowers. As my latest expensive gas self propelled was breaking down, I thought I'd try one of these as I was getting tired of the hassle of gasoline engines. I also thought I could do with the exercise. I was amazed but apprehensive on how light the box was. Very easy to put it together. Five minutes I think. I was kind of expecting to pack it up after giving it a try. I was laughing at how simple the thing is. Laughing even more on how it cut so well and was so easy to push. Kind of reminds me of a kids toy. But I'm amazed how well and easy it works. I have a small yard. Total time would take half an hour. With this it took twenty minutes. Because I'm not messing with the gas and trying to start the engine. There was something weird that happened after cutting the lawn with my new mower. I looked around and thought, "that's it?" Because before it felt like such a monumental task to cut the yard. The smell of the exhaust, the weight of the gas mower made it feel like cutting the grass was such a monumental task This is easier to push than my self propelled gas lawn mower. I wish I bought one of these long ago. It really does feel like a toy. Not saying it's cheap. It seems sturdy and well built. But because it was fun to cut the grass this time. I did give it a test by cutting some brambles and large weeds. It chewed thru them. As long as there are no rocks or sticks, I think this is a keeper. One thing, buy a can of WD-40 to spray the blades to prevent rust.

Do not hesitate, get this one!! This is a great lawn manual lawn mower! I am amazed at how it is just the right weight to not jump when pushing it and not feel like you a pushing a shopping cart with a broken wheel. It is very smooth and can easily be pushed with one had with little effort. My grass was high and think due to our battery powered mowers batteries keep dying. This unit did the job well getting though. This time my yard was just as high as the neighbor's is now in the pictures. You can see how well this manual mower did. The grass still is damp from dew and at no point in time did the mower choke. I finished faster then if I used a gas or battery powered. My neighbor in is 80's tried it out and was impressed with how easy it was to push and lighter than his mower. Also my girls checked it out as well 11 and 14 and both said it was easy. I read the complaints and here are my suggestions.. Do not push hard and up on the handle hunkerdown as you would a powered mower. This does not take that much force to push. Keep th handle low with a gentle but firm grip. If it bogs down check your grip and form. Clear your yard of small and big sticks, you should do this anyway with any lawn mower to protect the blade and help it to last longer between sharpening. Go at a steady pace if you stop take two steps back to restart. When cutting grass always keep the line of your last mow in the middle of the mower so you do now miss sections. No matter what kind of lawn mower you use I advice this. Never wheel on wheel but center that last wheel line. I use the mower on its lowest setting. You can buy a bag for it, it has the area to attach one. The mower took me not even 5 minutes to put together it was that easy!! I would clean the blade with a paint brush and wd40 the blades to keep them from rusting. Do not be afraid to wash it just make sure to dry it completely in the sun. A clean mower is a long lasting one.

Great delivery, but afterwards no bueno. To assemble is extremely easy out of the box. The handlebar grips I had to slightly lube to slap them on. Where to begin with the performance. Well I can say it does cut grass, we have a 10X10 area and it took long time to cut. You literally do a few passes like a vacuum but even then that's not enough. Anything along side the edge, it won't cut even when lowering the blades. Longer grass will get stuck to the wheels and at some point you'll probably end up doing a front flip because this thing gets stuck at times. Your grass area should be flat in order for this mower to work properly, ours has a slight dip close to the walkway and it's pretty useless there. I don't recommend this mower. You're better off with a weed wacker if you have the $.

Bought for my dad for Christmas and he put it together quickly and easily! The mower functions and maneuvers perfectly. The only downside to it is that it leaves all the mowed grass behind, but that wasn’t a problem for us. Highly recommend!

After selling our house and moving into a rental property, my wife and I decided we would maintain the lawn ourselves while on the hunt for a new house. Trying to save money, we thought it would be FUN to purchase one of these "lawn mowers," especially based off of the amazing reviews. The "mower" arrived, we quickly assembled it, and we were excited to test it out. Almost immediately, that excitement turned into frustration which turned into pure hatred, and here is why: 1. If you have ANY twigs (a twig is a very SMALL version of a stick), let alone any sticks, this "mower" will constantly jam when they get into the blades. Most houses with lawns have trees and therefore have twigs. The smallest of the small twigs will jam this thing to a screeching halt, which is incredibly annoying when you are moving at a relatively quick pace and all of a sudden seemingly feel like you just slammed into a wall. 2. Most lawns have a few weeds and/or random tall blades of grass. This mower will not, I repeat, will NOT cut tall grass or weeds. The grass needs to be shorter than the height of the blades, or it will not go into the blades to get cut. There is nothing EASY you can do to cut medium to tall grass with this "mower." So, once you finish "mowing," the taller weeds and grass blades stick out like a sore thumb and basically negate everything you just did. 3. If you want your yard to even look semi-cut, you need to cut the same areas a minimum of three times. The "mower" is seriously that inconsistent and bad. If you did one pass on your entire lawn with this "mower," I assure you, it will look absolutely terrible. So, for those giving this product 4+ stars, I have to assume the following: They have zero twigs or branches in their yard, they have very short grass and no weeds, they have the smallest yard known to mankind, such as a yard no bigger than if you laid down on the snow and did a snow angel, they have never used a real lawn mower that actually cuts all forms of grass and weeds (tall, medium, short), especially on the first pass, they are likely hippies who refuse to use a gas alternative and thus will rate even the worst product known to man a 4 or 5 to promote "saving the environment", they have nothing better to do than to spend 5 hours, every 3 days, mowing a small yard, baking in the sun, and still only getting a cut that would be rated 7 out of 10 at the best, and/or they are simply in denial of being duped into buying such an absolutely terrible product. I honestly would not wish one of these "mowers" on my worst enemy. Please, somebody out there who is reading this review and wondering if they should make the switch from a gas mower to one of these piles of junk, DON'T DO IT!