The right hose for you depends on your needs and personal preferences. In a nutshell, here are the primary differences:
Weight
The rubber hose weighs twice as much as the polyurethane hose. This is most noticeable while pulling the hose out and reeling it back in.
Durability
The outer cover on the polyurethane hose is made of the same material as the wheels on in-line roller skates.
It is the most durable covering we have ever found. This will be important if the hose is pulled across rough or sharp surfaces, such as rock, or if pulled around stone corners, etc. The outer cover on the rubber hose is softer and easier to tear.
Flexibility
The rubber hose is a softer and more flexible material than the polyurethane. The rubber hose will wrap back onto the hose reel very uniformly for a nice ‘look’. The polyurethane hose is more of a rubbery material.
It has a certain amount of spring or bounce to it. This is an advantage when it comes to kink-resistance, (which is discussed below), but not so much when it comes to creating a nice smooth wrap on the hose.
The poly hose can roll up quickly and easily onto a hose reel, however, a picture-perfect looking wrap is not as easily attained as it is with the rubber hose. Also, the longer lengths of polyurethane hose should only be used with a hose reel.
Trying to loop a poly hose into a circular coil on the ground will be an exercise in frustration. Both hoses remain extremely flexible, even in cold temps.
Kink-Resistance
The rubber hose is much more likely to kink, like traditional garden hoses, and also retain a ‘kink memory’, which is what happens when a hose seems to remember where it kinked, and then has a tendency to more easily kink over and over again in that same spot.
The positive side of the rubbery nature of polyurethane hose, is that it has a tendency to ‘flip’ out of a kink rather than collapse down into one. Plus, the polyurethane has zero kink memory.