It is an impressive machine but has it's limitations. It is simply too light to bust sod, rent a bigger unit for that or hire out the job. The little guy is great for turning mulch in and preparing the deed bed. I have no experience with the electric, they are not sold in Canada.
I sold Mantis and had an interesting experience with one customer. He had ordered one on line, not realizing brick and mortar dealers existed. Received all the attachments but no tiller. After waiting several months, he found us and purchased one. He finally received the first one at Christmas, when he refused the shipment Mantis would not take it back and credit his card. So much for the one year money back guarantee.

It is very useful for cultivating, dethatching for lawn. I have the Mantis with 25cc engine. I trim the edge of the lawn with it and no problem. I never try to break up the lawn with it yet. If you take your time, it will dig. If you worry about the power Mantis just come out one with 31cc Honda engine that is 30lbs (10 lbs heavier) which should improve on digging. But I think the small one would be just fine. After the first time, you would not need the kind of power anymore. The smaller one is lighter to transport around. I love my Mantis. Buy the dethatcher tine for your lawn, it work really great.

I bought direct from Mantis. Service is second to none. I repeat SECOND TO NONE. I they have one year home trial. The gear box broke on mine a few months from purchase. I called them, they actually apologized and sent me a new gear box in 5 days, I swapped out the old one, they even arranged to picked up the broken one a few days later. No question asked, no giving me hard time, don't cost me a dime. Don't be penny wise, save a few dollars and buy from store, dealers or ebay. They don't honor the warranty like this, they want you to go through the place you bought from and that usually where the nightmare start. Particularly some dishonest dealer, they will blame you on everything and not honor the warranty. The big store don't deal with you after 30 days, and ebay!!!!

Buy direct from Mantis. Go on their site and get the number and talk to a real person. It is free shipping. Do a search on Mantis in this forum, you will find me raving about my little Mantis in the last two years!!!!!

I agree w/ the first two posters. I own one and I don't ask it to do what it wasn't built/ designed to do. Forget about sod, your shoulders will be killin' ya from the tiller hopping up and down and you'll just shorten it's life. It's great for preparing seedbeds and tilling weeds in flowerbeds and gardens. I have the edger and it works excellent. I plan to order the thatcher soon as I've heard lots of good about it.
I have a TB horse to do the heavy work and a western auto small(14") front tine to do the jobs too small for the horse.
Mike

Yes the dethatcher works like a dream. I actually bought it for dethatching. It pull so much out, it does not beat up the lawn like the big BlueBird. The lawn looks good right after you finish dethatching, don't have to wait for two weeks until it grow back.

I just discovered how good it is for cultivating weeds in the past year.

I have the elect. model, have outlet close to my raised veg. beds. IMO the elect tiller has just as much power or more than the gas model. I had gas model for years and just got tired of fooling with gas and keep the carb. clean. The elect has three speeds but I have never had a reason to take it off speed 1. I've had big tillers, small tillers and IMO the best way for a small garden (not a half acre) would be raised beds using the mantis which ever model you choose, takes up less space, your able to control the dirt, mantis don't flip all the dirt out and you have very little leveling after you till, and not much work for what you get in return IMO. IMO it would be hard to break up impacted soil (especially Clay) with grass and weeds. I would first cut the grass and weeds off real low (so they don't get wound up in the tines so bad)(other wise you will be cutting them out), break it up with a shovel, then let the mantis do it job quickly.

If you don't want to deal with maintenance of the gas tiller, the electric would work. It really don't require much power for tilling. Hack, the 21cc Echo engine ( yes it is the same as the Echo SRM210 engine) is not the most powerful engine in the world, the electric motor can easily match up the power. For these little cultivator, you use it every other month at best, you really have to take steps to keep the gas fresh, prepare for storage etc. If you don't want to deal with all these and you have a outlet close by, electric is definitely the way to go.

BUT since I am a small engine fanatic, there's no way I would get an electric one!!!!!! I am actually trying to convince my wife that I need a gas pressure washer instead of the electric one I have!!!!! She is not buying it so far!!!

I have 2 mantis 2cc tillers. One is a 1988 model that has a grease fitting on the gear box. The other one is a newer one that does not have a grease fitting on the gear box. I want to know is this wearing out the gears in this one that does not have the grease fitting? If so, what should be done?