A rotary sprinkler is by far the best sprinkler for watering lawns. It can be used in a variety of ways, even doing deep soaking in a single pass. This means you spend less time and water on your lawn in order to get better results. It's easy for a rotary sprinkler to efficiently apply 1" of water over 10,000 square feet of the area because it covers so much ground per rotation.  As an added bonus, the amount of power used by these types of pumps is also relatively low so they are more efficient than many other methods available today.