It makes a world of difference, doesn't it? With the forest my next door neighbor has in her back yard, I end up with a pool full of leaves every year in the winter even though I have no trees--and I used to use the same net as your second pic--until I found one like your first pic that has a squeegee thing on the lip of it. Now it's SO much easier and quicker to get rid of the piles of leaves!! (I also discovered that if I run the pump for 4-5 hours and shut it off first, it piles all those leaves up into two distinct piles on the pool floor so I don't have to "fish" for them!)

Janet