PRODUCT REVIEW
PRODUCT REVIEW
THE first review I ever wrote for TOOLKiT (then titled ToolBusiness Magazine) more years ago than I care to remember, was a roundup of cordless drills. They ranged in price from £12 to nearly £100. Lithium Ion had not been heard of and if you got 12v of power you were lucky - the norm was more like 7.2v or 9.6v. Nevertheless, it was enough to drive screws up to about 35mm (in softwood with a pilot hole) or drill holes up to about 10mm in diameter. Compared to using a pump- action screwdriver – the Yankee - using a cordless drill was positively controlled and easy.
I am not a believer in the notion that things were always better in the old days. Some things might have been better, but I wouldn’t swap my 21st century tools and fixings. They are simply better, quicker, easier, more accurate and possibly even relatively cheaper too. So it seemed like a good idea when the editor suggested that we evaluate some budget cordless drill drivers to try to get a perspective on how things have developed. Accordingly, I was given a budget of around £120 and told to scour the sources to find a representative sample of cordless drills to examine closely.
As expected, online offers are many and various but I wanted to find the tools where the delivery time was realistic, (not direct from China) and also where a non-specialist tool user might look if they needed a budget drill. I managed to find three samples from the high street stores Argos and Robert Dyas. These represented good value and the typical tools that an occasional tool user might buy. Wickes supplied the last sample.
All the drills had the now universally adopted, more powerful Lithium Ion battery packs. No more nasty, poisonous NiCads. But clearly the battery packs on the samples were at the cheap end of the market – 18v battery packs for top branded tools could easily cost £100 or more.
Great expectations As can be seen from the specs, our
expectations of these tools is high. Keyless chucks, softgrip handles, variable speed triggers and an LED are included as standard. These features make for a much better ‘feel’ from the tools and they have been expected on more expensive drills for years, so they can’t cost that much to include.
I was also struck by the fact that each drill seemed to handle well with a comfortable grip, easy-to-reach trigger mechanism and easy adjustment between modes. They certainly didn’t feel clumsy. I think this just shows how the knowledge and experience gained by designers of these tools has enabled them to shortcut the design process to come up with a good design first time. The tools certainly seem to handle and perform well, possibly even better than (if my memory isn’t too faulty) the pioneering cordless drills from the 1980s.
All the drills had the now universally adopted, more powerful Lithium Ion battery packs. No more nasty, poisonous NiCads."
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