I'll speak from my mid-Atlantic experience. We don't get alot of snow but we can get the occasional 12"+ blanket every few years. Our typical snow is 6" or less. My shoveling style is that I like to get down on the snow and just toss it to the side. I like a shovel with a medium size blade and a true edge to scrape the surface of the driveway/sidewalk. If the blade is too large it gets unwieldy for quick throws and encourages overloading. I prefer quicker smaller tosses. Because the edges don't last on the shovels I treat them as throwaways. The metal edge on the plastic ones can bend so make sure it is not too thin if you go that route. The plastic ones are cheaper but the edges seemed to not last long at all.

If you just want to push with your hips then those S-bends work okay. I just find that they get loaded up to quickly and snow falls over the edge of the blade. Because of the shape I find can't toss very well with them.

If you get deeper snow I think I would like those 1/4 round looking ones. I think they would have a stiffer blade to dig into drifts better.

When it gets really bad, I get out my mountaineering shovel. Small short handle with a stout blade for digging through compacted snow.

I generally get 2-3 seasons from a shovel.

A big 'Ol coal shovel works great.

I use an alluminum grain scoop for both grain and snow.

Get s shovel that is limited to female shoveling.

What is the best is a very subjective answer. How much snow do you get and how heavy is it? Do you regulary scrape down a sidewalk or driveway? I also use a grain scoop like johndeere suggested. It offers the best of all worlds as far as I`m concerned, it`s wide enough with a large enough blade to move a significant amount of snow yet it is not so wide that you can`t dig snow with it like those really wide snow shovels are.

If you merely need to push a few inches of light snow off your sidewalk then a wide pusher shovel is probably best. What do you care if you can dig with it?

The bent handles are for ergonmic posture, you don`t have to bend as much. This may or may not be a gimmick. Frankly I`ve found the balance of this type shovel to be way off when tossing snow, picture how the blade becomes off center to your supporting arm when it is turned sideways.

No real snow shovel or grain scoop is made for chipping ice, do so at your own risk while being aware that you are ruining your shovel.

So you live in Italy and you have a local Home Depot?

I recently bought the Suncast 20-Inch Snow Shovel/Pusher Combo.

Highly recommended

Here is a link that might be useful: Suncast 20-Inch Snow Shovel/Pusher Combo