Lydia Hartsfield, Senior editor

Being senior editor here mostly means deciding what goes into a ranking and what stays out, and I say no more often than yes. A listing can print a big acreage figure on the box. I want to know what the manual says about mowing time per charge, the recommended schedule and the slope that figure assumes. A claim that only lives in the marketing copy doesn't make it into our verdict.

Most of my week is spec sheets, manuals, warranty pages and owner reviews, read side by side. I start with the unhappy reviews, because that's where a mower's habits show up: the corner it never finishes, the narrow side passage it refuses, the dock it can't find after rain. One owner with that problem is bad luck. Ten owners describing it is a pattern, and patterns go into the verdict.

I write our guides on choosing a robot mower, on lawn capacity and on large lawns. I edit most of the others.

My own bias, since you'll find it in my guides anyway: measure your lawn before you read a single product page.