There are many varieties of snow shoes and definitely some are better optimized for certain tasks. If you plan to be breaking a lot of trails in powder many of the recreation snow shoes will be too small. My favorite powder shoe are US military surplus magnesium snowshoes with an aftermarket binding.
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/prod...us-magnesium-snowshoes-with-bindings?a=764314
The military shoes are great but the bindings they came with were useless, throw them away as soon as you get them and don't even try to use them. I use Iverson bindings
http://www.pcsoutdoors.com/standardasnowshoeharness.aspx they will fit any bootsize and go on quick. They are fairly lightweight and indestructible and great on powder but not so good in tight trees. I use them for trucking around in the woods in deep snow and have used them chainsawing. The stainless steel webbing and mag frame means nothing will try to eat them ( a problem with wooden shoes, porkys and mice love the rawhide). They are great with brush underneath and have far better floatation than the modern recreational shoes that tend to be made for packed snow or trails.
I cant recommend wooden snowshoes, there are great ones still made but for the price you can buy some real nice plastic ones that will last far longer with less care.
For recreational use the big dividing point is do they have rotary pin bindings or something similar. Basically if you can hold the binding horizontal and the showshoe rotates vertical it has a pin type binding. This type of binding works well for climbing as the front of your foot sticks out through the deck and the crampon under the toe grabs in. Sherpa snowshoes had the patent for this design and despite being out of business, they are still used by many backcountry S&R groups (including NH fish and game). They are on ebay frequently. There is firm in Canada who still makes a lookalike for working folks, they are expensive and overkill unless you use them for a living.
Lower cost recreational bindings are riveted to the decking or may have some sort of strap that tries to act like it. Beans usually has both sytle bindings. Beans has the lifetime warrantee.
Yukon Charlies are Walmart Chinese knock offs. They have the rotary pin binding and a lot of other features but the quality varies from boat load to boat load. They will serve many people well but may not be a great choice if you are depending on them.
MSR makes Denalis that look like a plastic shovel with cleats. They have optional removable tails for a little bit better performance in deeper snow. They are hard to break and generally on sale. They also make higher end technical shoes that have tended to be a bit more fragile but high performance. I have MSR lighntings with televators for winter hiking. The televator can be popped up under you heel for climbing steep slopes. That is incredibally usefull for climbing but useless for trucking through the woods. MSR hasa new line out this year and they warrantee their equipment for life. Tubbs was a good Vermont brand for years but sold out and is now Chinese production, they do make nice shoes and appear to back up recent products on warrantee. There Flex Alps have good rep for winter hiking.
Atlas shoes tend to be west coast, the are the minority in NH. They tend to be a smaller running type snowshoe but some folks swear by them.
By the way buy some poles or get some old ski poles, they make all the difference snowshoeing.
broken link removed to http://www.bigfootsnowshoes.com/sizing_chart/)
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