You typed this on a device that would allow you to learn anything, including tool use, and instead you chose to use that time to publicly claim your own ineptitude. This statement does not come from a place of disdain, but from a lack of understanding of why people often choose not to use the collective human consciousness as a tool to better their situation by learning skills and applying them. The dude who fixed your toilet isn’t any different than you, except he knows how to do something you don’t. With internet you can change that with a few Google searches.
Quality-wise, Makita > DeWALT ≥ Milwaukee > Ryobi, at least, if you watch teardowns by guys like AvE.
Power tools are like cars; companies hold several brands and target them to different market segments, like Porsche and VW.
Ryobi is owned by the same company as Milwauki; it’s the budget line, Milwauki being their premium line.
DeWALT and Black & Decker are owned by the same company; DeWALT is their premium line.
The exception in this list is Makita, which is its own company. They’re also objectively more well-built than the others (here), and correspondingly usually more expensive.
The premium lines are better quality (not just more expensive) but also tend to have smaller battery-tool options. Despite being a budget line, I mostly own B&D because most of my tools these days are 24V and there are more tool options there. The few, select, DeWALT tools I have are noticably better quality.
I don’t use power tools enough to justify Makita, but also, their battery-powered line is comparatively tiny. As someone else said, there’s a lot of motivation to pick a (compatible) lane, whichever it is. For most home-gamers, the quality difference will probably not matter much. If I were made of money, though, I’d have everything Makita except for the things they don’t make.
I really like DeWALT. I think it’s a solid choice, and I doubt anyone who isn’t a professional will notice the difference in quality between those and Makita. Plus, they have some neat tools that have unusual features that make an unexpectedly large improvement in ease-of-use.
It drives me nuts that Milwaukee used to be the best line about 10 years ago. They sold out their good name and started selling shitty tools after I bought into their battery system. Grrr.
My tool experience is limited, but with Makita you seem to be describing the same anachronism principle you find in espresso machines.
Arguably the best espresso machines in a class are reminescent of the same model you found 40+ years ago. If you’re looking for the B+ range, everything worth buying has a big metal E61 grouphead with manual levers. In the S-class range, you tend to have more manual levers as often as bells or whistles. My new machine that cost more than I deserve (wife bought it) is basically an oldschool machine with nothing modern in it but a PID controller. Legend has it, it will be passed down in my family for generations to come (exaggeration, but not much).
Hmmm. You may be right. I have owned no Makitas. I’m going by tear-down videos. AvE may have gone a bit off the rails, but he’s done some really good tear-downs of different tools, and looked at the quality of the materials, the casting, the motors, switches, and so on. He consistently was impressed by Makita’s build quality… but all of those videos are, like, 6 years old, or older.
It’d be too bad if even the “good” makers like Makita went the quantity-over-quality commercial route.
One of the things that convinced me to go Makita when choosing my “house” was that they don’t have separate high and low voltage battery systems. Dewalt, Ryobi, and the others have a 18v/20v system and a 36v/40v system. Makita has bigger tools that you plug two batteries into and by the power of math you have a 36v tool off two of regular batteries.
At least when I was looking that was a unique thing to them and seemed like a great idea.
My brother and I used Ego for lawn work. I’m not sure if these brands have lawn/garden stuff (I think I remember Ryobi does), but it’s the same concept. I love battery powered tools, but I hate how the brands tie you in.
They absolutely saw how the AA and C and D and even the 18650 cells that every vape shop carries meant that a single supply of batteries could power any device you need them to and said absolutely the fuck not.
Never mind the terror that the CEO must feel as he contemplates tools that plug into any wall socket and need no batteries, ever.
Considering the market for the batteries, handy people with power tools, it’s kind of a shock that we’ve gone down without much fight. No, we won’t make some sort of viral battery carrier that you can 3D print at home, load up with 18650s, and use with an adapter for any tool. Yeah, we’ll just go ahead and buy DeWalt everything now that we bought that one battery pack for $75. Darn, if only I had the kind of tools that were good for grinding off little plastic nubs and shit that gets in the way. Oh well, time for my daily beating, it is what it is.
The big manufacturers (specifically, the ones listed by OP) change their battery connectors and voltages every 10 or so years in order to re-patent the shapes to make them the sole suppliers of usable batteries. People that work on job sites need batteries that are intrinsically safe and robust enough to get thrown around or smashed by other heavy tools. So those packs have to be really overbuilt.
Luckily the major design patents are about to run out and a third party will swoop in and free us from the tool manufacturer battery tyranny.
If we’re gonna talk about tools, I gotta shout out porter cable for making an absolute tank of a circular saw. Finally went cordless Bosch, but that porter cable has a good 20 years or so of heavy use and it’s still kicking.
That’s because the batteries have become the printer ink of the tool world. They’re f’n expensive.
If you buy into a product system it makes no sense to have different batteries that don’t fit all the tools. If you keep the batteries all the same then you can be charging one or two sets vs having to buy extra sets and charger multiplied by the different tool makers.
I have one of the manufacturers shown in the image, and after I got a kit that had a charger, tool, and extra batteries included I got hooked in because they sell tools without batteries, but I have extra! So I bought same maker. The tools are all pretty good, so not much difference between makers, but that’s one way they hook you.
This is the entire motivation I had to buy what I did when I became a homeowner. I don’t want a random assortment of batteries and chargers strewn around the place, especially when a replacement battery pack can run upwards of $300-500 depending on its capacity.
I chose Dewalt, but mainly because I had a pretty capable little DeWalt 12v cordless drill for a long time and I was very happy with it and the durability it had… I purchased a pack of tools, and switched to the 20v “Max” (or whatever variant is local), which is also compatible with the flexvolt, which is good because we added a few garden tools (string trimmer, hedge trimmer, and later a lawnmower). All of the tools we have use the 20v batteries. As luck would have it, DeWalt also released a snow blower in the last few months, which we promptly purchased, since where we live we get quite a bit of snow, and nobody wants to shovel. The only catch is that it uses the 60v flexvolt batteries; the flexvolt batteries can work at 20v, so those batteries can be used on any other tool, however, since the blower is 60v, only those flexvolt batteries can be used with it. It’s the only tool that requires the higher voltage.
There’s a lot of yellow tools. I don’t fault anyone for using a different brand; this is just what I am using.
The batteries are actually really simple. The best thing you can do to increase efficiency and save money is learn to replace the cells. You can get higher quality lithium cells than the batteries come with if they start to fail for way cheaper than you’d expect. The boards have like 12 circuits, and if you can’t fix them you can buy them for a few bucks.
I’ve done that on older battery packs. It’s a PITA because many packs are sealed, not screwed together, and you have to physically cut them apart to get to the batteries within for replacement. And assemble the batteries, which are often soldered in order. Then you gotta figure out how to reassemble the whole thing in a way that it won’t crack apart again. Doable, but definitely not for everyone.
This is the way and how they get everyone hooked. My husband was -this close- to buying a badly reviewed lawn mower all because he had 3 batteries from the same brand. Two hardware store employees talked him out of it even though it meant my husband walked away with a cheaper brand, bless them.
Interesting take. I’ve spent a lot of time in the trades and if your a plumber with DeWalt no one will take you seriously. You’re also just wrong about manufacturer my guy. Milwaukee is in same umbrella as Ridgid and Ryobi, with Ridgid actually being the second tier. Milwaukee is so good, tti gives them operational independance. DeWalt makes really good stuff, but in 1 to 1 comparison Milwaukee usually wins.
Ridgid actually slaps imo. My dad owns a lot of their line, and we can beat it to shit and most of it keeps kicking. The octane line was weirdly fragile, and the old batteries stunk. Aside from that, you cant beat the warranty.
It’s surprisingly hard (at least for me, perhaps I’m looking wrong :p) to find general comparisons comparing the brands for overall usefulness. You’ll find stuff comparing their drills, or something specific, but not everything overall. Which seems much more important, as (as has been mentioned in these comments) the batteries really lock you into one brand.
Be the change you want to see in the world. Start up a spreadsheet or database and start looking to see if there’s a way for others to add to it and view it, like a Google Sheets or a non-Google equivalent.
Can’t really compare cordless drills to circular saws, that’s apples and oranges. If you’re going to buy into a tool line (the only real reason is to avoid having to purchase multiple chargers and batteries, those are expensive) then pick the one that has the best tool(s) that you use the most often.
And sometimes the harbor frieght is a direct clone of the name brand but for inferior plastic parts where the name brand would have metal. You can often upgrade the knockoff to be a near equivalent.
You remember how Harry chose the house he wanted to be in, and it’s canon, that the sorting hat ward isn’t definite? When I was buying my first tool, I wanted a Ryobi. But they didn’t have it in stock and they did have Makita on sale and the sales guy told me that would be much better for the same price. So after that I’m buying only Makita, to fit the rest.
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