Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I researched and ultimately ordered this mower in hopes of getting a quality mowing solution that would eliminate the overhead of a gas powered engine and give me a little more exercise in the process. I have mowed my yard several times now and I am throwing in the towel. The mower wins and unfortunately I lose ($$). Before I go into the specifics, let me try to provide as balanced of a review as possible. The unit arrived safely and on time (thank you Amazon Prime). Unboxing and assembly was a breeze and the unit itself is adequately constructed. I had everything ready to go in under 15 minutes. As for mowing, well, it works. Sort of. As other reviewers noted, the mower will not mow down weeds, they just pop right back up. If you're sitting there thinking to yourself that this is something you can live with, I was like you once and thought to myself, "hey, this is kind of a feature! At the end of the mowing session all I need to do is get some round up and either pull em or squirt em. The weeds are the only thing standing so this will be great!". So far all I've see is what I should've known to begin with and that is killing weeds is like playing whack-a-mole. I know I should probably care more about the yard than this but adding another 15 minutes to every mowing session to squirt/pull weeds is beyond me. That's -1 man points. Thinking about having to spend that extra time in the 105F+ temps in the Texas summer (ok, mid 90s in the mornings) discouraged me even more. There's another man point lost. Now, let talk about the mowing itself. Like I wrote earlier, it works. It takes effort and while I knew it would take effort (that was the point right?) I vastly underestimated how much. I'm not the most athletic but at 6'3" 185 pounds I feel I should be able to handle this thing,no problem. To really be effective with this mower, you need to be in pretty good shape to begin with. To help quantify this, imagine pushing a gas powered (but not self propelled) at a near running pace for the distance of the yard. If this thought doesn't seem like a big deal to you, this might be your mower. For me, I really was surprised at how whipped I was after mowing my yard and it was because I had to be in a jogging pace to get the reel to spin fast enough to effectively cut the grass and not get bogged down. Granted, I have quarter of an acre but still, I had no idea just how much it would take from me and we haven't even reached our typical low temperature for the summer season. -10 man points points right there. Ok so you get it - it takes a lot of physical effort but you're not afraid and are still interested. The question now becomes - How does the yard look afterward? Honestly, I thought it looked like my yard had received a $7 haircut. Some folks can pull off the $7 haircut but like me, my yard has a few cowlicks that is better handled by a costlier solution. Add to that, if there is any debris in your yard such as a small rock or stick it will get jammed in the reel and you WILL have to fish it out of the reels with your bare hands. Given the reel moves so freely, it is not inconceivable of gnarling your fingers up pretty good. Being overly cautious, -5 man points. Last point I will make is pointing out is the yard clippings. As you can tell, there is not a way to collect the clippings as you mow. The clippings are very coarse and they are thrown forward as you mow. You really need to rake them up or else the soil will get too compacted as the season wears on. This adds time and extra effort. -5 more man points. Game set and match, I have lost my man card and it is time to research gas mowers.