I have a Honda EU2000i. It is an inverter/generator. Very quiet, medium weight 47lbs, reliable, good power supply. I use a lot for camping. I love it. You can find it on ebay for around $800.
Another option is you can check Costco. I just saw they have Honeywell 2000W generator for around $499. It is 65+ lbs.

ALX5

Nice thing about those Honda EU2000i inverter/generators.
You can connect 2 of them together and they will run in tandem.
But seeing as how your not going with Honda I guess it's moot.
Anyway I'll include the link in case you want to have a look see.
BTW Honda's are Carb compliant and very very quiet which is
one of the 3 reasons why it will be my choice.

Here are some video's Honda Generators

Here in Hurricane Central the portable Hondas are usually at the houses where you can't hear the generator running. :) I, also, invested in a whole house Generac, running on natural gas. Had it now for 5 years, and have had to use it a few times, for short term outages. Quiet, dependable, and comes on automatically in a few seconds if the power goes off.

If you have natural gas service at your home it would seem that a Generac would give you the best service since you would not have to store large quantities of gas.

Thanks to E10 gas becomes stale very quick and if you use a stabilizer it still will last only about 6 months.

That depends, where were you in the spring of '65?

OT...
Ah, skating through my last few weeks of high school,
and getting my share. ;)

Age-wise, not impossible, but not probable, so don't run
to your mailbox looking for checks. :D
GL, mD

Whew..... Had me going there.
Thunder was almost calling me Uncle Barry....:bustingup:bustingup

fixed.

If you ever saw a pic of my father and me together, it's immediately apparent that we're from the same gene pool. Except that I'm considerably taller lol.

I went through this exact phase last year. The "emergency" generator for under $500 deal. After months of looking and comparing my options in that price range I decided that my expectations were out of sync with the reality of these expensive things. Being that my ultimate purpose is to use this for emergency scenarios, I came to the conclusion that I might as well pony up some more money and get something that can do little more than power my fridge since it IS for emergencies.

I went with a broke my choices down to yamaha, robin/subaru or honeywell (honda) within the same price range.

I ended up buying a yamaha Inverter EF2400
2007 Yamaha Inverter EF2400iSHC Home, information

this thing is super quiet.