~$400 up to however much you want to spend.

dang.. i saw a brand new 4 stroke Talon for 160 and usually its 300 so that stirred the interest.

There is no doubt that for anything other than buffalo reel mowers are far superior to rotary mowers. However rotary mowers require a lot less maintenance. 5 minutes to change a set of blades as opposed to dropping it off at the mower shop to get the blades sharpened. You also need a specific tool to change the height on a reel mower.

For 90% of applications the trusty rotary will be fine.

Basically what happens with a reel mower is that the heavy rear roller pushes the turf down promoting it to grow sideways (providing better coverage) whereas a rotary mower does not and so the grass will grow more upright. This means that the grass will become spongier over time and you can not mow it as low.

The cheap reel mowers are an absolute waste of time. The engines are crap and the bottom blade (reel mowers work with a scissor type action) is made out of the thinnest shittest metal they can get and if you hit one rock / nut you will need to get it sharpened. The mowers that your local jims mowing guys have are the go but you need to budget $3k + for a new one.

I would steer clear of a talon but that is probaly just because I hate cheap stuff. The best on the market is the honda HRU17 or HRU19 but they are around $700. Bearing in mind that it will last you a long long time it is not that bad. Also with the honda you will always be able to get spare parts.

My 2c

Brendon