Most people are satisfied with their drills, so I'm not sure how useful ind ividual brand recommendations are. Its hard to really go wrong, unless you get something bottom end.
One thing not often mentioned: the good brands use metal gears and large mo tors, making them heavy. I rejected a dewalt and picked a cheaper brand bec ause of this, tiredness is a factor in my work.
I was amused by a sign in Aldi offering 14.4v cordless drills the other day for £15. God knows what they're like. Their other stuff seems adequat e, but I cant imagine you'd get anything cordless & ok at that price.
Its a fair point for casual users of one tool. For those that have used many different ones you can read somewhat more into anecdotal reports.
For example, I was "satisfied" with my first cordless - a 7.2V Richmond two speed drill from Argos. It gave me freedom from a cord, and a decent screwdriving and removing capability I had not had prior to that (my mains drill had no reverse for example) it was light and easy to use. Looking back however I would not want to go back to it as my only drill. It had a single battery, and a 15 hour charger, no hammer action. The gears were plastic (it still has a click each rotation in one gear where it shed a cog tooth as a spade bit jammed).
My next was a B&D Proline 9.6V one. Variable speed with reverse and twin speed, metal gears etc, and a 1hr charger with spare batt. A far more competent and useful tool. Much better quality feel, and battery life, far more useful torque etc. It was great for many tasks but struggled with 4" screws into softwood and its hammer action was quite feeble. However I never use it these days since its batteries are now knackered, and it in reality it pales into insignificance compared to my Makita 18V combi, that runs rings round it in every conceivable way.
Having used the Makita it puts the earlier tools (and all those I have used since that belong to friends etc) very much into perspective - they are a world apart. (and to be fair there is a quite a gulf between the low end Makitas with 1.3Ah NiCd and the Marathon motored posher versions).
Yup that is true - although my 18V Makita is quite heavy, its well balanced and smaller than a mains drill. I find that its my go to tool for all jobs except those that need the SDS. While I have several "normal" corded mains drills, they never get used these days. I am however tempted to add a 10.8V Li-Ion drill/driver and ID kit to my setup for when doing lighter assembly work and the smaller lighter tool would be welcome.
The tool may be usable - but the batteries are going to be crap. Someone bought be a B&Q cordless jigsaw once - probably at a similar price point. One 24" cut in 1/2" ply was about its limit on a full charge (with the speed falling off contentiously through the cut!), after that is was a 15 hour wait for a recharge on the bundled toy charger.
I have one - sort of fine as a casual wood drill and screwdriver, and I use it a lot. The battery is a bit of a pain (Holding charge and takes a while to charge), and the chuck sometimes needs a second go to get the bit centre, but fine.
To the OP - I'd probably be looking at a hammer in my next cordless. Having used a 14V (£200!) Bosch recently. By no means heavy duty - but it does 6mm into masonry very nicely.
My feeling is that hammer is next to useless. Perhaps it's the materials I come across - you can either drill normal bricks with just a decent masonry drill, or you need SDS for everything else.
Yup same here... I had bought an impact driver (the clomp it with a hammer mechanical version - not the modern take), which I very rarely found a use for, however I did work out I could stick the bits in the end of Mum's B&D in low gear ;-)
I should hope not - that jigsaw was comically bad! I did not expect it to be particularly good, but I did expect it to actually be ussable...
I find once you get up to the 14V and above tools, the hammer can be quite effective (especially with a Bosch MM drill bit).
I remember being quite surprised finding that I could drill the render on my last place with my 18V cordless, and a MM drill bit with relative ease, even though in the past I had given up on trying to use "normal" hammer drills on it, since it seemed to be totally impervious to them. (Bosch mains drill, normal 5mm masonry bit - 15 mins per hole!)
The uspide of hammer is just that you've got it built in to the tool you've got with you, when you didnt take the sds. So if youre only working on you r own home, not overly useful, but otherwise it is.
Also masonry bits used without hammering sometimes suffer a short life. Ham mer extends their life as well as speeding the job up.
Makita 18V Lithium-ion Combi Drill with 2 Batteries
I also am interested in this exact model - - it seems good for the £102 price. Has anyone got the same model? Any comments on it? Is it OK as screwdriver as well?
+1 for the Makita with NiCd; I always used to say I would never touch NiCd again once NiMH came in, but their "budget" models with NiCd seem to be fine for medium domestic use. I manage OK with two batteries on the drill (although I have a third for the radio).
I've never understood why 'site' radios use a battery, I'd have thought it would be ideal to combine a charger into the radio, to avoid having another battery and to avoid needing a charger *and* a radio ...
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