I was a bit shocked when I saw all the 1 star reviews for this, as I’ve had it a year or so and am 100% pleased with it so far.

We have an average suburban sized lawn, and this mower keeps it neat and tidy with no fuss and very little effort. Once the motor is going it’s really easy to move about, but the lack of wheels may make it bad for someone with a bad back/old folks when trying to move it when switched off. The grass box holds enough to do most of the lawn before having to be emptied and the cable is more than long enough.

The only down side is that if it’s really dry out, as soon as the grass box fills up you get a blast of dust and grass stright up your nose! Also, you can’t adjust the cutting height so if you’ve left your lawn to get really long you may need to cut it twice to get it to a proper level.

A word to the wise – you can get this much cheaper from high street stores.

I needed a light, easy to carry and store, grass-collecting lawnmower for my two small lawns. The Flymo range, and specifically the Compact 300 seemed to comfortably cover all aspects. Out of the box, you are immediately aware that the flimsy plastic casing is unlikely to be tolerant of anything other than the flattest of lawns. It is light, and easy to carry – but its grass cutting and collection ability is poor. About half of what is cut is “blown” and “strewn” around the lawn, covering flower-beds, patios and planters. New flowers close to the lawn-edge are decimated by the “hover” action (not the cutting-blade). For small to medium gardens (the market this product is targetting) the Compact 300 is little better than useless as the clearing up needed after it has “mowed” the lawn more than doubles the time required. Due to its design, grass collection only takes place if the mower is going forward, so no collection occurs during any sideways or backwards motion – which means the cut grass has only one place to go. The orange casing seems to heavily attract these wayward grass-cuttings requiring the machine to be thouroughly cleaned before transporting through a house…. not allowing for pick-up-and-go..