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Friday, November 01, 2024
Best Cordless Drills for 2024
Pro Tool Reviews: For most people, a drill is the very first power tool they own. While things used to be as simple as choosing the brand you like, determining which is the best cordless drill for you can mean searching through hundreds of models.
I remember going from the drills my high school had to using one at a theatre company I worked for, and the difference was obvious. The drill at the theatre company worked so much better and was so much smoother. It could even drill into metal without much effort! I find it fascinating how much someone’s building experience is affected by the tools that they use. Someone who uses quality tools will have a much easier and more enjoyable time than someone who uses lower quality tools. I know dull blades are considered more dangerous than very sharp ones, and I wonder if a similar principle applies to drills as well. A lower quality drill requires more work by the operator, which will increase their fatigue and potentially increase their risk of injury. And the less efficient a drill is, it could be more likely to create a lot of heat as it drills and potentially become a fire hazard. I wonder if these create enough of a safety risk to influence the decision of what drill someone should buy?
Having recently gotten into this industry full time, it has surprised me how dogmatic tool brand use is and how passionate people are about their tool brand pride. This article is very helpful from the point of view of someone looking to buy their first drill in the near future and decide what is most important to me, although I will say that I believe this website should expand more into providing video demonstrations with more hand tools in particular to provide the consumer with even more information that often pertains to the specific work one has to do. Regardless, it is important to emphasize that one should always evaluate advancements in technology to best support the work they have to do, and the first step in that is staying informed on the options available and optimizing for your use and price range in doing so.
I am of the opinion that there are too many drills on the market and now due to technological advancements many companies are trying to capitalize on the homeowners cordless drill. The capitalization many of these companies are trying to achieve means that there are so many drills that all aren't that good. Home owners don't want to spend a fortune on cordless drills so mass construction companies meet that need by making a worse version of their original products. I have heard many many times that a certain brand is no longer good or has gone down in quality enough that nobody is buying them anymore. Some people even scour online reuse shopping to find old or used products that they know have the original good quality that they need. But many people are not looking for the highest quality tools so companies are able to get away with a downgrade in quality.
Gotta love the tool reviews, and I have to say, I like that instead of just choosing one set of parameters for the "best" and listing the top 5 drills that do that, they made different sets and chose the best drill for those sets. I think that makes it easier for people to get what they actually want out of this list. Personally, I always like to look at whatever is the highest performance. Torque and battery life are what I look for in drills. According to this list, the highest-performance drill was the Flex 34V w/ Turbo FX1271T. Flex is a brand that I did not know very much about previous to coming here, but they tend to make the top of these lists quite often. Last time it was with their impact driver that had a button to release the bit. I haven't personally tried any Flex tools but as soon as I get my hands on one, they may be making a jump to my 1st place brand.
I love how Pro Tool reviews doesn’t just choose one best drill and leave it at that; they choose the best drill for a handful of categories and explain their reasoning. In this sense, I think it’s funny that certain patterns emerge along their tool reviews. For example, Flex usually takes the prize for most powerful, and DeWalt is usually the compact drill. The M18 family is great. I’ve never used the drill they mention in the article, but I have used other M18 drills. Above all, they’re versatile and can do a lot of different jobs well. Their drill bits kind of suck, though. I’ve never used a Flex drill before, but I look forward to the day I can. I hear the name mentioned a lot but I’ve never actually seen one. I’ve only ever used cheaper Ryobi drills, but they were still pretty good. I’d be interested in trying the one mentioned here to see how they compare.
I think that knowing what the best tool is is good information but ultimately what it boils down to is what battery system offers the tools that you need to execute the tasks at hand. What level of reliability do you need? This is something that Pro Tool reviews is usually missing, and to be honest that is a more important qualifier than how much torque the drill produces. I am way more worried about how much abuse the tool can take. I want to know if I accidentally leave my drill in the form board and I pour a bunch of concrete on my drill and then throw it in a bucket of water to wash it off. Will it still work? If I drop my tool off a 10 ft ladder will it still work? Although comparing price to power and all of that is useful, ultimately I want to buy a tool that will last, I want to be able to use the battery that comes with it on other tools. I don't want to have to have 2 battery types to complete the tasks at hand. There is a reason most plummers and metal workers use Milwaukee tools; it is because there are specialty tools offered in the M12 or M18 battery line. Makita, and dewalt have a large array of specialty carpentry and finish carpentry tools offered in their respective battery types. But to finish my thought, what brand Hammer drill you ultimately choose should be well thought out because the value of that battery ranges from what tools can go onto it. Most companies have the drill down. It's the line of tools in relation to the battery that really should dictate what brand you go for.
6 comments:
I remember going from the drills my high school had to using one at a theatre company I worked for, and the difference was obvious. The drill at the theatre company worked so much better and was so much smoother. It could even drill into metal without much effort! I find it fascinating how much someone’s building experience is affected by the tools that they use. Someone who uses quality tools will have a much easier and more enjoyable time than someone who uses lower quality tools. I know dull blades are considered more dangerous than very sharp ones, and I wonder if a similar principle applies to drills as well. A lower quality drill requires more work by the operator, which will increase their fatigue and potentially increase their risk of injury. And the less efficient a drill is, it could be more likely to create a lot of heat as it drills and potentially become a fire hazard. I wonder if these create enough of a safety risk to influence the decision of what drill someone should buy?
Having recently gotten into this industry full time, it has surprised me how dogmatic tool brand use is and how passionate people are about their tool brand pride. This article is very helpful from the point of view of someone looking to buy their first drill in the near future and decide what is most important to me, although I will say that I believe this website should expand more into providing video demonstrations with more hand tools in particular to provide the consumer with even more information that often pertains to the specific work one has to do. Regardless, it is important to emphasize that one should always evaluate advancements in technology to best support the work they have to do, and the first step in that is staying informed on the options available and optimizing for your use and price range in doing so.
I am of the opinion that there are too many drills on the market and now due to technological advancements many companies are trying to capitalize on the homeowners cordless drill. The capitalization many of these companies are trying to achieve means that there are so many drills that all aren't that good. Home owners don't want to spend a fortune on cordless drills so mass construction companies meet that need by making a worse version of their original products. I have heard many many times that a certain brand is no longer good or has gone down in quality enough that nobody is buying them anymore. Some people even scour online reuse shopping to find old or used products that they know have the original good quality that they need. But many people are not looking for the highest quality tools so companies are able to get away with a downgrade in quality.
Gotta love the tool reviews, and I have to say, I like that instead of just choosing one set of parameters for the "best" and listing the top 5 drills that do that, they made different sets and chose the best drill for those sets. I think that makes it easier for people to get what they actually want out of this list. Personally, I always like to look at whatever is the highest performance. Torque and battery life are what I look for in drills. According to this list, the highest-performance drill was the Flex 34V w/ Turbo FX1271T. Flex is a brand that I did not know very much about previous to coming here, but they tend to make the top of these lists quite often. Last time it was with their impact driver that had a button to release the bit. I haven't personally tried any Flex tools but as soon as I get my hands on one, they may be making a jump to my 1st place brand.
I love how Pro Tool reviews doesn’t just choose one best drill and leave it at that; they choose the best drill for a handful of categories and explain their reasoning. In this sense, I think it’s funny that certain patterns emerge along their tool reviews. For example, Flex usually takes the prize for most powerful, and DeWalt is usually the compact drill. The M18 family is great. I’ve never used the drill they mention in the article, but I have used other M18 drills. Above all, they’re versatile and can do a lot of different jobs well. Their drill bits kind of suck, though. I’ve never used a Flex drill before, but I look forward to the day I can. I hear the name mentioned a lot but I’ve never actually seen one. I’ve only ever used cheaper Ryobi drills, but they were still pretty good. I’d be interested in trying the one mentioned here to see how they compare.
I think that knowing what the best tool is is good information but ultimately what it boils down to is what battery system offers the tools that you need to execute the tasks at hand. What level of reliability do you need? This is something that Pro Tool reviews is usually missing, and to be honest that is a more important qualifier than how much torque the drill produces. I am way more worried about how much abuse the tool can take. I want to know if I accidentally leave my drill in the form board and I pour a bunch of concrete on my drill and then throw it in a bucket of water to wash it off. Will it still work? If I drop my tool off a 10 ft ladder will it still work? Although comparing price to power and all of that is useful, ultimately I want to buy a tool that will last, I want to be able to use the battery that comes with it on other tools. I don't want to have to have 2 battery types to complete the tasks at hand. There is a reason most plummers and metal workers use Milwaukee tools; it is because there are specialty tools offered in the M12 or M18 battery line. Makita, and dewalt have a large array of specialty carpentry and finish carpentry tools offered in their respective battery types. But to finish my thought, what brand Hammer drill you ultimately choose should be well thought out because the value of that battery ranges from what tools can go onto it. Most companies have the drill down. It's the line of tools in relation to the battery that really should dictate what brand you go for.
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