Quietness and run time in a generator is important to some people and that is why the Honda's shine even though they are more expensive.At a little less than .5 gallons an hour consumption running an air conditioner,who wants to have to stop it every 2-3 hours to fill it back up?
I still own four generators and they all have there uses but my to go gen sets are the Honda 2K for when air conditioning is not needed and the Honda 3K(My favorite of all) for everything.The 3K re-defines quietness for large generators making my 2K Honda sound loud.
Quietness and runtime would be on the top of my list if I wanted to buy a cheaper gen set than the red and blue,as most seem to want to do.I also would give up a couple DBA's for runtime.There is nothing worse than having to fill it back up in the rain/snow or wind then restart everythng or forget to fill it and have everything hooked up to it go through the stress of the gen set running out of gas.Can't be good on things attached.