Lawn Mowers Pro

The Bosch Rotak 40 Ergoflex is the bigger brother of the Rotak 34 and has a wider cutting width of 40cm as the name suggests. Ideal for medium sized lawns the Rotak 34 and Rotak 40 are very similar. The main differences being the cutting width and engine size. Of course the rotak 40 being a bigger brother carries a more expensive price tag. In this review we hope to review this mower and talk about whether the bigger price tag is justified and ultimately which lawn mower you should get.

Design

First lets first talk about the design. The primary material this mower is made of, as with the other mowers in the Bosch range, is plastic. The big advantages of this are that as a consequence the mower is very light weight. At only 12.3kg it is easy to carry around. Also the mower will not be prone to rusting as is the problem with metal lawn mowers. The main disadvantage of it is that plastic may not be able to withstand very hard knocks compared with metal mowers. Having said that, the Rotak 40 feels very well made in your hand and very sturdy. With all of Bosch’es products you are buying high quality products and under normal conditions it will last a long while.

Ergoflex System

The ergoflex system is Bosch’s new handle bar design for its lawn mowers that makes it very easy to operate the mower. With buttons located at the sides and at the base of the handle bar it is designed to allow you to be able to grip the operational buttons from any position of handle. From our tests it is a big improvement on the old design and makes a big difference to comfort while operating the Rotak 40. If you don’t feel comfortable gripping the diagonal bar then grip the side bars, very ingenious and suitable for lefties aswell. Very nice.

Power

The Rotak 40 has a 1700 watt as opposed to the 1400 watt engine in the Rotak 34. In our review of the rotak 34 we said that the 1400 watt engine in the rotak 34 was a very capable engine. We stand by that comment as the 1400 engine in the rotak 34 is a really nice engine that packs a punch. The 1700 watt engine however is one that we really like. Considering that this mower is bigger, with a wider cutting width, the 1700 watt engine really compliments this size of mower well. Thanks to Bosch’s PowerDrive system the 1700 watt engine enjoys seemless cutting, delivering the right amount of power when needed. We can’t stress enough how nice this engine and is right up there with our favourite lawn mower engines.

What is it like to use?

So what’s this thing like to use? Firstly, what is great about this mower is that it is so easy to store away. The folding two piece handle means the mower won’t take up a lot of space. We’ve already talked about how light weight it is so big plus points in the storage and manoeuvring departments.

How about mowing? We love how easy it is to adjust the cutting height. Just a simple taste of selecting the desired height at the side and you’re ready to go. You can selects a cut right down to 20mm and up to 70mm so you are spoiled for choice really.

The next thing we love is how easy it is to manouveor the mower while you are mowing. With big petrol mowers you will need a bit of strength to make the mower go where you want, but at just 12.3kg the Rotak 40 requires very little persuasion to go where you want it to go.

What about the final result? This is a really important one as we could go on and on about how good this mower is but if the final result of the cut grass is not good then it would all have been a waste of time. Well it does not disappoint in this regard. This mower produces a fantastic final cut and we were really impressed with the professional finish that the Rotak 40 gives. At the end of the day this is a very important factor when considering a mower.

Conclusion

So whats our final verdict? Should you go for the Rotak 40 lawn mower or the cheaper and smaller 34? At around £150 it is roughly £50 more expensive than the Rotak 34. But we feel that the differences between the two mowers justify paying that little bit extra for the Rotak 40. The better 1700 watt PowerDrive engine alone would justify paying a premium but other improvements such as the wider cutting width and the bigger grass box means we would happily choose the 40 over the 34 every time. There is very little negative we could say about this mower and at this price point there is really no other mower better in the electric mower market at the moment. We have ranked the Bosch Rotak 40 as our top mower for 2012 simply because it is a cut above the competition in terms of value, performance and quality of finish.