www.slashgear.com: If you want professional-grade power tools, you're going to have to pay a premium price. At least, that's how it goes with many of the top power tool brands. And of that bunch, few brands come with higher prices than Milwaukee. The brand certainly has its fans, but there's no way around it: Milwaukee leverages its good reputation to justify charging high-end prices for its power tools.
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This article really got me thinking about where tool prices are at, and the psychology behind it. One of the things that stood out to me in this article was the price of a Milwaukee vs Harbor Freight drill. According to the article, the Milwaukee drill was priced at around $230 and the Harbor Freight drill was only around $80. When I saw that, I raised an eyebrow. I realized that if I needed a new drill, I would never buy one at $80, I would spring for something similar to the Milwaukee, and likely around the Milwaukee price point. However, if I had less experience with tools, and just wanted it for a DIY job, it would seem like a no-brainer to get the Harbor Freight tool. After this consideration, I scrolled down to the angle grinder. Angle grinders (especially the large was like what was shown in this article) can be a little anxiety inducing even when they are of the best quality. However, with the Harbor Freight model ($130) costing less than half of the Milwaukee product ($300), I can't help but wonder where that money is coming from. There is really two possibilities that I can think of, and both are worrying. The first is that Harbor Freight is cutting corners and making their tool of lower quality. This is my gut instinct, and what I think is probably the real reason. This is worrying because the drawbacks may be not just in performance, but in safety. And when I'm holding a tool that eats through steel two feet from my face, I want the number of corners cut on safety to be exactly zero. However, after I ignored my initial bias, I also realized it is within the realm of possibility that they are of similar quality, and that Milwaukee is able to price their tool so high just because people like me are immediately making that association of price=quality. While I'm sure either hypothesis could be proven or disproven with testing, it is still interesting to think about.
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