Ryobi is great for starting out. They’re definitely not the best tools, but they’re cheap. If you wear out something from them, you’ve earned the right to buy a good brand of that tool.
I’ve gone through a skoolie (school bus converted to an RV) project and now most of a house renovation with one 1/4" Ryobi drill and one 3/8" Harbor Freight drill and they’re both somehow still going strong after five years of hard usage. I had bad opinions of both manufacturers before but not any more.
My experience with Harbor Freight power tools is a (corded) circular saw that works extremely well. I put in a better blade, and it rocks. I’ve had it for years and it shows no signs of slowing down. I’m not a heavy user but I’ve used it for quite a few projects over the years, including an RV renovation I’m working on now.
Project Farm on YouTube has great tests and reviews of products like this. Fully recommend his channel if you are in the market to buy tools or tool adjacent products.
There is a canadian Youtuber that I stopped watching because he turned out to be a Canuck Trumper type, but he did a lot of videos where he broke down power tools with various price points and showed why they cost what they cost and where manufacturers do or don’t cut corners. Interesting stuff.
I’m an America who has never been to Canada, but I’ll weigh in with this:
Every single [edit - Master Craft] Canadian Tire tool I’ve ever come across or owed has a swingin’ pair. My 1000w inverter has been in a saltwater environment for 7 years and is still killing it weekly, as well as my CT cordless drill.
Nearly every single kobalt tool I’ve had has broken or just stopped so quickly. They are such a small step above harbor freight that it isn’t worth my time anymore.
I’ve been pretty happy with the Ryobi 18 and 40 volt stuff. If I ever need anything fancier I’ll probably start investing in milwaukee. At some point I plan to invest into a tool storage system and milwaukee may win that decision…
For corded stuff, brand loyalty isn’t that useful. I have a dewalt portable/job site table saw I really like.
My jigsaw and circular saw are skil, so I could probably stand to upgrade, but they work well enough.
Just bought a kobalt powered screwdriver that uses usbc to charge and seems fine for household use (when a drill driver is not needed)
Still have an old dewalt drill on a dead battery platform that refuses to die.
If you’re looking for a solid storage system, check out toughbuilt or flex. As someone with the rare experience in several different mobile tool chests, flex and toughbuilt kick the hell out of the packout. I run the toughbuilt stacktech myself, and it’s got everything I could have hoped for. Tough as hell, metal corners, waterproof, no fumbling to lock or unlock pieces as they connect automatically, and they’re a good bit cheaper to boot.
It is whatever you buy a battery and charger for first. Then you are unwilling to forfeit that battery to just buy another tool. So you get another tool of the same brand, even if you aren’t happy with the previous. Then at that point, you’ve gone to far. You’ve got several hundred dollars in batteries you would have to give up just to switch. It is the most blatant example of the sunken cost fallacy.
Ryobi, specifically has entry level tools (a basic drill) that come with a charger and battery for cheaper than you can even buy a battery by itself. When you’re young and broke and all you need to do is hang some curtains or something you get it. But really, it is just a seed for your future “house” that you belong to.
Would there be a way to 3D print plastic part of a battery and just fill it with standard battery types (cylindrical batteries) and make them swapable? Because as far as i know there isn’t really any electronics in batteries, just different voltages based on number of batteries in series and different mounting mechanism. It just seems like a silly vendor lock-in.
I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop and for a Belgian or something to drop in here to say that they’ve had fully interchangeable batteries for the last twenty years, and then make fun of us for building houses out of wood because we didn’t clear cut our continent.
Looking for this comment, I’m still running my craftsman 19.2 volt tools, but with a 20v DeWalt adapter, saved my from throwing away 1 reciprocating saw, 1 light, 1 1/4" impact, 2 drills, 1 90° drill, and a circular saw.
Fucking Ridgid got me, because on paper, they have lifetime warranties on their batteries. But after buying an expensive combo, they made it an absolute hassle to register my tools, so I kinda doubt they’ll honor their warranty. Now I’m Ridgid + Dewalt. My corded tools and hand tools are whatever brand; harbor freight or walmart if not used often, Milwaukee, DeWalt, etc if I expect to use them often.
I actually did a lot of research on this when I bought my first battery tools, knowing this would be the case, and decided they had a decent range of everything I’d likely need.
I’m not hauling my portable compressor into my attic, nor do I have an extension cord that can reach the end of my yard. It stays in my garage. Even then I prefer battery tools because of the noise when the compressor kicks on.
I have a 100’ air hose that reaches anywhere in the house. I often run it outside and back in a window somewhere so it doesn’t end up in the way of family. I also have a small compressor for airbrushing rather than running permanent air lines from the garage to my basement workshop. You’ll still want cordless convenience for a drill and some other small tools though.
I used to be ride or die for Makita as an electrician, but they’ve gone downhill lately and their battery prices are insane! Used to be a Makita could fall off a ladder onto the chuck and bounce. Last year my crew had two drills newly bought that year CATCH FIRE and one strip the gearbox. Embarassing performance.
I’ve pivoted to Ridgid with their dirt cheap batteries with lifetime warranty. And I have a couple Ridgid->Makita adapters to use my new collection of Ridgid batteries with my tough old Makita tools. Battery adapters will free you from that lock-in.
Honestly I’ve been impressed with the Ridgid tools though, same manufacturer as Milwaukee and Ridgid has always been a big brand with plumbers. The brushless tools I’ve bought have been powerful and robust so far. No regrets
So TTI manufactures Milwaukee, Ryobi, and Ridgid power tools. I didn’t know they did Ridgid too. I wonder how many manufacturers there really are for the plethora of power tool brands. I’m gonna guess like three.
In 10 years you will have thousands of dollars in makita tools because hey, that hammer drill you needed was only $110, better get another battery too, your old ones are getting tired. 🤷♂️ and you will always have makita tools, forever. Even if you hate them.
Yeah Ryobi is dirt cheap and good enough for most things. When you need to add another tool, choosing between the one that doesn’t have a battery and the one that does but is twice the price has a big influence on your decision.
Also, I’m not a contractor, so I only use certain tools once every six months. Have yet to have anything fail on me. If it does, maybe I’ll upgrade. Certain tools have already paid for themselves in that they saved me from needing to hire someone else. Just getting a pole saw and hedge trimmer alone saved me probably $700.
I do have a few of the other brands, but they were damn pricey and I don’t use them enough to justify it.
I really dislike Home Depot after a series of huge customer service mishaps with me last year, and actively avoid going there now.
Which is a shame because I have a lot of Ryobi One tools. They are perfectly positioned for weekend warriors…huge tool library, good batteries, affordable and of fairly decent quality (certainly well above “junk” and a good value for the money).
Shame that is a store-exclusive brand.
The worst part is I’ve bought into most of the cordless tools I’d really need. The day might come where I want a larger circular saw (mines only 5.5 and it is prone to binding if your technique isn’t perfect, and even then…) or find that some of the tools that I’m okay with having corded (like a jigsaw or an angle grinder) I now need a cordless replacement. At that point I’ll likely find myself buying into a better and more expensive battery system and, for quite a while, only having the one seldom-used tool for it.
Now I’ve got a dead 4Ah battery and I’m on the fence as to rebuild it, buy a new one, or take it as an opportunity to start going into a new battery system.
As a Semi pro, I run Metabo HPT for power tools and beat the hell out of them and get free batteries. Never had a tool or battery die in several years.
For groundskeeping I go with worx. They’re great but aftermarket batteries suck ass.
Any plug in tools that aren’t antiques are rigid, their warranty is nuts, and their mitre saw has the widest range of any I’ve ever used. Plus free service and parts for life.
My coworker runs Milwaukee, lots of variety, but he’s had two drills and three batteries die in 3 years of basic use, so I’m not sure if I trust them wholly. The packout is nice, but there are better options out there for portable tool chests now, like flex and toughbuilt.
I know a few pros who switched to flex tools and swear by them, but they’re too fresh to market to know for sure, although the company has been around forever supposedly.
I’ve somehow killed half the Hitachi/MetaboHPT batteries I’ve bought, and two of three chargers to boot. If anything else in my house made a habit of mysteriously dying for no reason I’d blame the power company, but as it stands it’s just the power tools, and I am by no means a heavy user. Maybe my garage just gets too hot? I dunno.
I’ve noticed a difference between the Lowe’s/retailer Metabo tools and the stuff they have at Menards and Amazon. Menards especially seems to only stock discontinued models. I’ve been consistently surprised at how hardy mine have been. Maybe I just got lucky, or you unlucky.
My construction companion runs Milwaukee. As I stated in a different comment, he’s had several drills and batteries blow in about three years. This isn’t to say they’re not a great brand, but that’s too many lemons for the premium they charge for my taste. seems like their biggest downfall is the plastic shells they use, especially on batteries. Those little power check buttons break right quick, and the rubber over moulding doesn’t deal with grease well.
I run Metabo HPT, and I abuse the hell out of them. Drilling inch holes 12" deep in concrete for garage anchors, running all the batteries in sub zero and 100+ temps, notching studs until the multi tool is too hot to hold. Never had a failure in 6 years. Even my original batteries still work as well as the new. A slick bonus I found out being a compulsive tinkerer, the batteries that they sell as 18v 3ah are actually 24v 5ah. I always wondered why they lasted so long before I ripped a few apart. Samsung cells as well.
I was browsing the tool section at a Home Depot once a couple of years ago when a very attractive young woman came up to me and started asking me about my project. I’m not so dense that I thought she was hitting on me, but I couldn’t figure out her angle and I thought maybe she was a prostitute or something. Turns out she was a Milwaukee sales rep and she was trying to encourage people (men, rather) to buy some Milwaukee cordless tools.
Any exchange of labour for money under an indentured system where you are under constant violent threat of homelessness, destitution, starvation, and even death if you don’t work, is a certain type of prostitution born of desperation.
TL;DR: most of us whose paycheques are signed by someone else are labour prostitutes.
While I agree with you on most accounts, Milwaukee drills have cheap switches on them, they’re usually the first to hang to go. The chucks seem kinda cheap too, but honestly that’s not enough for me to switch teams, I’m married to Milwaukee, and the divorce would just be too damn expensive at this point.
Timely! I was gifted into House Milwaukee this holiday season. I guess the sorting hat did it’s thing. Hope to learn a lot of useful wizardry, I’ve got a door frame to fix.
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