I'm looking this spring as well, John Deere was my choice last year, but I'm reconsidering now. Right now Lowes and Home Depot carry similar stuff, Lowes added Deere to their lineup this year, and HD added Cub Cadet. Feature for feature, the Cub Cadets are a better mower for the money than comparable Deere's. All the John Deere models that Home Depot stocks have a Briggs engine, they are no longer carrying any models with a Kohler. While the Briggs have proven reliable, I have never heard a bad thing about a Kohler lawnmower powerplant. Cub Cadet's have Kohler powerplants, and larger cutting decks for same price compared to John Deere. Cub Cadet seems like a pretty good choice, as I have always heard good things about their quality, until this last couple of months a few friends have stated they had problems with their Cub Cadets from years ago. So then I started looking at the new Toro's that HD is carrying, which maybe the way I go. Only issue I have is that they are stated as having an "Automatic" transmission, where everyone else used a "hydrostatic", I don't know what kind of difference that makes.......