I’ve been toying with the idea of replacing all my old, mostly corded, power tools with a single 18V system and like many others I’m trying to decide between Makita and Dewalt. They seem to be pretty even and most recommendations boil down to “pick the colour you like best”.

However I bought a subscription to a magazine that does a lot of product testing, and saw that they gave all Makita drills the lowest rating in the “expected battery life time” category because they only lasted 300 charging cycles out of the 400 they do as part of the test. Now 300 cycles is quite a lot for a home DIY:er, but is battery life something that Makita owners have had issues with? I can’t remember seeing anyone complaining about it when looking for user reviews and comments. However I do have a vague memory of some pros complaining about Makita “smart” tools shutting down supposedly because they detect that something might break, thus forcing the owner to hand it in for service.

Article in Swedish, and probably paywalled.

edit: Since I doing a bit of testing how annoying (i.e. mostly how high pitched) different drill drivers sound, which hopefully could be useful to someone else, I’ve updated the title to include this.

  • ffheinOPEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    Thanks, I think :) If I reviewed power tools for work I’d publish SPL graphs for them, similar to what you see for loudspeakers. I can get a bit obsessive when researching things to buy, probably because I hate to get disappointed, and minor flaws annoy me, sometimes more than they should.

    I guessed you weren’t that interested, but I wanted to write down my findings in case someone stumbles upon this thread some time in the future. I’ve found a lot of good info in old reddit conversations. So without further ado, here’s the results from today:

    I went to Bauhaus, where they were clever enough to not block the battery slot with the anti-theft device, so they just gave me a battery and let me play around as much as I liked. On the downside they don’t sell Makita anymore, so there was only DeWalt + a few brands that I’m not interested in at the moment.

    Retesting the DCD791 it was more tolerable than I remembered, definitely not as ear piercing as the old Ryobi at home. It has a bit of a whine all the time which increases in loudless with speed, but I think I’d tolerate doing some quick jobs without feeling I need hearing protection.

    The new DCD800 was much more silent on slower speeds, but once I fully pressed the trigger it got a very loud and high pitched sound.

    Found a DCD777 which was almost silent (relatively speaking), very similar to the Hikoki DS18DD both in sound level and slightly lower max speed…

    They also had an older DCD790 which was surprisingly quiet. It has a max speed of 2000 rpm, though according to specs it’s similar in power to the 777, while the newer 791 delivers around 100W more power.

    • @ThitherwardsEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      That’s review right here) For me, no matter how thoroughly I research something before I buy, it’s always some chance to be disappointed in the end, so I try to let go, and not think too much about it. Though, I hope you find your perfect set, mate)