Light weight, durable, powerful and cuts thru hard clay and rocky soil. Works trouble free for years! Highly recommended.

Don't get fooled. This little machine bucks like crazy. Will only work on soil already well worked and free of all but the smallest weeds. The little Honda engine is good as you would expect but the frame work is light and doesn't anchor the engine well enough to keep it from jumping all over the place.

First impressions. I've had a 2 cycle Mantis tiller for over 20 years .Mantis are great, light, easy to maneuver. Got tired of pulling the starter rope on a hard to start 2 cycle. My 46 year old Troy-Bilt 6hp still starts on a couple pulls. Anyway, I purchased a 4 cycle Mantis. I'd rather change oil than mix gas. Assembly is pretty easy, easier if you watch a quick Youtube. Hooked up the throttle cable to the carb [factory missed that for some reason}, installed oil and gas, primed, chocked, and pulled the starter rope easily and the Honda engine came to life and idled nicely. Used it to cultivate and it worked like a champ. Honestly I think my old Mantis maybe cultivated a bit better, but the tines are a bit different so it probably will till better. Haven't tested, but Mantis claims 10 inch depth. We'll see. Plus the ground was pretty hard from recent heavy rains. Other improvements like redesigned handle bars with soft grips and throttle with good on-off switch are nice, as is the 4 cycle Honda engine which runs smooth.All in all a nice, light tiller for light cultivating and small bed tilling is going to be easier and less hassle with this new Mantis. Plus I've still got a big 6HP for the big double row tilling.Edit 6-24-24: After using several times, I'm really impressed with how easy to start the Honda engine is. Prime, choke and typically one EASY pull of the rope and it starts. It's quieter that a 2-cycle too. I do find the 4-cycle to be a little heavier than my old Mantis and maybe a tad bit harder to maneuver, maybe due to being taller off the ground, but with all the other improvements well worth it and a pleasure to cultivate all those pesky weeds that pop up in the garden in the summer.

There's no comparison when it comes to Mantis! I'm a professional landscaper and can say, without a doubt, that this is the best tiller/cultivator you will ever use. My first one lasted 7 years of constant use, unfortunately I managed to destroy it by using gas with ethanol! Do not make this mistake! Make sure you buy manufactured fuel! Don't let the size of the tiller fool you, it has more power than any of the large ones I have ever tried. With the added bonus of being easy to transport to different locations and this thing never fails to start within the first two pulls.

We used to till our garden and it did a wonderful job; lovely machine

I must say I am impressed. Researched many tiller models, some mini and some not-so-mini. Settled on this Mantis after surveying reviews here and elsewhere. What a delightful little machine. The money and time it has saved allowing me to do the project I had paid for itself a couple times over.In spite of its relatively lightweight status (24lbs I think?), it did a surprisingly good job of digging into the heavily compacted dirt and clay in my yard. Doubly so because of roots I asked it to go through, leftover from the four trees we cut down. I do have a few recommendations for getting the most out of it:(1) Make liberal use of the ability to easily reverse the blades back and forth from “cultivating mode” into “tilling mode.” The cultivator mode made a HUGE difference in being able to cut through tree and plant roots without tangling and/or jamming every few seconds. Once the roots and plants are well dealt with, a quick return to the more aggressive tiller mode churns more deeply in very short order. NOTE: this also reduces the amount of bouncing that seemed to irritate some other reviewers. And me. :-)(2) Take your time and let it do its thing. Some want to make a single quick pass and then wonder why it only takes off an inch or so of the hard compacted top layer. Remember that it is, after all, a MINI tiller. Give it a moment, pull it back and forth a few feet to remove some of the dirt pile that builds up under the tines, and it will settle in for the deeper churn right quickly.(3) Get the kickstand. It’s too convenient to skip.(4) I think the real value of this machine (for me, anyhow) lies in its ability to do double-duty. Or quadruple duty, I guess. Treat yourself to the attachments. The power rake, edger, and aerator attachments are fantastically effective additions that really round out the Mantis’s capacity and utility in the yard, turning it into a true year-around workhorse. The attachments have been utterly worth the added expense, and switching between them is an easy and quick affair.My review was not solicited. I am submitting this review only because I am so tickled with it’s performance. The only criticism I can offer so far regards the less than perfect directions for assembly. Some of the nuts did not match what was described or displayed in the directions, and the wording was not entirely intuitive in every instance. Having said that, a little looking at what I had in the box made it clear enough what was needed, and it worked out just fine.The only caution I would have for potential purchasers is the size. This isn’t a critique of the unit itself so much as a cautionary comment to make sure it is what you want. It does a fantastic job for a mini tiller. But it is a mini tiller. My house sits on just shy of 1/3-acre and it takes a long time to work my entire lawn in any mode. If I had more storage room, I’d be wanting their larger model. Especially if my plan were to till the entire yard. Having said that, it does a fantastic job. I am highly impressed that such a small unit can do so much and do it effectively.The amount of time, effort, and money this Mantis has saved me has made me a huge fan. Far better machine than some of the other tillers I have used in the past and I couldn’t be more tickled with my purchase!

But it's not. It can dive into big heavy clods and reduce them to powder in a few passes. Diving into clods won't be a regular thing. The Mantis will mostly be used for cultivation and preparing small beds here and there for annual flowers. The Honda 4-stroke starts very easily. You can't go wrong with Honda.CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S BEEN ALMOST 6 YEARS SINCE I BOUGHT THIS THING. It suffers the usuall small-engine neglect...It goes 6 weeks or more sometimes without running....BAD. I was having trouble keeping it running and was about to buy a new carburetor. But I just poured a half bottle of carb cleaner in the gas and now it runs like new. HONDA! It is a great tool.... my garden soil is now perfect and I will cross my fingers and put in more kale, cabbage, etc. Houston! You never know if the weather will turn out winter perfect as it often does.I've had it long enough so I don't keep it in the garage like something delicate. It's under a tarp on the back porch. Still starts right up... of course, Honda... So light I can carry it anywhere. Put in the back of the car. In no time it makes the garden look great and makes it just right for planting. And now in March 2020. Same opinion. Starts easily even after sitting idle for a month or two. Does a perfect job of getting new ground ready for beans. The two pictures on the right...only about 20 minutes apart. I'm glad I got it. Time has passed. I like it even more. It's so nice to crank it up and reduce our garden beds to powder in no time. Now and then I hit a brick; it bounds up into the air, comes down and keeps working. No damage. I will have to read up on mantises. Whatever they are they are tough.

Easy to assemble, Arrived on time, Can't wait for spring, tough stuff.

I bought the 2 cycle version of this tiller some 18 years ago - was the best smallest and deepest tiller on the market and was extremely pleased with it. I hadn't had much use for it since moving, so sat in the garage for 13 years unused until last year when I tried to start it again - obviously after all that time it needed some repairs and did remind me of it's particular starting method (choke, pull until it fires, choke off, 2 pulls and starts). However, after 13 years of disuse, it just wasn't working the same, so needed to replace it.Doing some more research, this is still the best option on the market for a small tiller that will till deeply. When I saw Mantis offered a 4-cycle engine (no more 50:1 oil mixing) using a Honda engine (regarded as one of the best small equipment engine manufacturers you can get), I decided to get the upgraded version of this tiller.Package showed up via UPS within a week of ordering it - faster than the expected delivery time they originally advertised. Didn't take too long to assemble it (attach handles and kickstand, really). Used it yesterday for the first time and works like my original did 18 years ago, if not even better with the 4-cycle engine. Very pleased with it. If tilling in heavy weeds, you will have to stop from time to time to clear the weeds that get wrapped around the shaft, but is relatively easy just by taking off the tines and cleaning it out.One concerning item is that it was tagged with a warning on the engine to avoid gas with ethanol, which is not an easy task since most places in Canada have now mandated 10% ethanol in gas...and many companies also use it as an octane booster. Issue with ethanol is that on some engine components (some plastics), it dissolves and picks up traces of the plastic molecule and when burnt, will gum up the carb and other systems over time. One upgrade might be a metal fuel tank as is likely the greatest exposure and don't see people draining the tank between uses.Overall though, very pleased with it...