You guys asked for it, and I worked all day Sunday to make it happen! (What, you thought I took weekends off?!)
Check it Out: ToolGuyd’s New Cordless Drill Comparison Guide
There are a couple of things to keep in mind:
1) The specs are all accurate, to my knowledge. If you find a mistake, please let me know! Most specs are taken from official product pages, some are taken from retailers’ product pages, and some of the ones not referenced anywhere else on the web were taken from press releases.
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2) Prices are rough guidelines and aren’t set in stone.
3) Right now only Bosch and Dewalt drills are listed. Adding additional brands and models will take me time. Give me a nudge and I’ll try to work faster.
Where to Find it
There’s a link at the very top of this post, and I’ll probably post an update post or two as it gets closer to being completed.
There’s also a link in the top menu, under “Best Tools” – it’s currently the second item in that drop-down menu. I might add a link to the sidebar, but probably not until I can create a neat photo or graphic so it’s not just a boring text link.
How to Use it
The headers at the top are sortable. This means that you can sort the list of drills according to what’s most important to you, such as torque, length, weight, and price. Click a header to try it out.
You can sort multiple columns for more customized sorting and results. Hold down the shift key to select multiple columns, and keep holding it while you click on the header you want to sort. This functionality is a little wonky and only really helpful for certain queries, but it’s there if you need/want it.
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You can also move rows around. This way, if you want compare two or more specific models, simply drag them next to each other. Is that cool or what?!
It took a lot longer than I’d like to admit to get this all working, and a couple more hours to track down the specs for just two brands’ current generation 12V and 18V-class cordless drills. I hope you find it helpful!
If you found the comparison useful, or think it’ll be useful once it’s more populated, and want to say thank you, please consider signing up for our newsletter. Why am I pushing for newsletter subscriptions? Because I want to start sending out special once-a-week emails but the list needs to be bigger for it to be worth the time and effort.
Or don’t sign up for the list and just tell me how you like (or don’t like) the new comparison feature. It’d be nice to know I didn’t blow ~12 hours so far on something nobody will use. If you like it or don’t like it, how can I make it even better?
If I hear a lot of positive feedback, I’ll look into doing something similar for impact drivers, impact wrenches, and maybe circular saws and reciprocating saws – after I work to add more entries to the drill comparison.
Roger
This is awesome, thank you!
One data suggestion would be to have generic “tags” associated with each entry, e.g. “brushless”, “budget”, etc., rather than having strictly defined columns like “type” or “motor”. I’ve found that this allowed for a lot more flexibility going forward when I set up a database of rc helicopters years ago.
You can still have key/value pairs by just creating tags like “key:value”, e.g. “torque:265” or whatever.
Stuart
Thanks! My intent is for the “Type” category to be very loosely defined. I at first disabled its sortability, but later changed my mind. The benefit of that column will be more obvious when comparing between Milwaukee’s FUEL brushless drill and the new compact brushless one (https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/milwaukee-compact-brushless-drills-impact-driver/%3C/a%3E%29.%3C/p%3E
I wish I could also have added in info about chuck size and type, and maybe the number of clutch settings, but there are only so many things that could fit. I supposed I can abbreviate “brushed” and “brushless,” and simply “Type,” to make space, but it wouldn’t have added very much.
Ed Y
Nice work Stuart. Understandable that you can only fit so much info in the chart, but I would have loved to have chuck type info when I was looking for a 12v drill recently. My old BD and Craftsman cordless drills don’t have a ratcheting chuck, so I was looking specifically for this feature, in addition to price, et al. I almost bought the Bosch PS31/41 combo kit, but when I went to Lowes to look at it, the floor sample didn’t ratchet. No where in online specs was it mentioned. I downloaded the user guide and it just says to tighten the chuck. I ended up getting the Milwaukee M12 combo.
Hmmm…, maybe you could show secondary info as a balloon popup or something although it would be nice to be able to sort on this info too, oh well can’t have everything.
Thanks
Stuart
I’ll see if I can fit that in, but right now I cannot make any confident promises.
Balloons, popups, or tool tips would add to the complexity and also wouldn’t be obvious to some readers. Plus it might interfere with the row movability. They also wouldn’t be visible to mobile users.
My intent is for this to be a quick comparison tool to help narrow things down. Then, the purchase and preview or review pages would hopefully help with final decisions.
Nathan
I like the idea and the implementation. maybe another key feature or so. Like metal chuck or something else that’s a industry standard differentiator. I’m drawing a blank at the moment. and I’d leave the prices off for now – otherwise you’ll need a link or something that would poll prices for you. it would be hard to keep other with otherwise. With the info already there – the person can price them on their own.
Stuart
I considered that too, but metal chucks aren’t necessarily differentiators anymore. Some inexpensive models have metal chucks, some higher-end ones have plastic-encased ones.
Good idea about leaving the prices out – I might just do that to free up some space.
Alan
This is really helpful! I’ve been reading your blog for quite some time, and thought I should finally comment and thank you for your great work.
One question: does this list include Hammer Drills? If so, it would be nice to see at a glance which ones are.
Thanks.
Alan
Stuart
Not yet. I *might* add in hammer drills once I have the list more populated with drill/drivers. Or there might be a separate table lower down on the page for hammer drills.
mp
Column Name = Hammer
Column Value = True/False
User sorts/filters just like an excel spreadsheet.
Stuart
There’s not much room for an additional column. Plus, with hammer drills BPM might be an important spec to also add into the chart. Again, no room, but could also complicate things.
I’ll look into adding filtering, but that’s probably not something I could easily add. To be honest, filling in the chart with additional entries is going to be my higher priority right now.
Kyle
Excellent – thanks Stuart! Really nice feature.
As the table may grow in time – one thing that might be a pain – but I’ve found really helps make a dense table easier to consume – is to add images (thumbnails even) to the rows. Provides a quick visual cue that can help one quickly get context.
Stuart
That’s a good idea, but as the table is now, images would be too small to make a difference. If I had it so that you could click to make them larger, then the page loading speed would be greatly affected.
I intended for this to be more of a comparison for those who already have a couple of models in mind that they want to compare.
For someone just starting to research their options, my Best Cordless Drills roundup and recommendations would be a better starting point.
firefly
That look neat. One of the nice thing that would be nice to have is a custom compute field such as price/torque. Or perhaps you can maintain that internally and give a rough value index…
Also the ability to filter by column value. For example if we need to find a drill with the the minimum 300lbs torque, between $200-$600, give me the list order by the rough value index 🙂
Stuart
Price/torque could get messy, especially since I might leave out the “Price” column altogether as Nathan mentioned. A ratio might inaccurately make a budget model that’s kitted with (1) 1.3Ah battery look better than a premium model kitted with (2) 4.0Ah batteries.
firefly
You are right it can get very messy, even though a value index is helpful it’s difficult to consider what all should be included in determine such index. Please scratch that idea then.
I don’t see a problem with having the price column as long as you noted that it’s static. I have seen it on other website and it’s nice to have a historical price as a reference point…
Joel Niccum
This looks like a great tool, Stuart. I know I will be using it. I would also really like to see guides for other power tools. This comparison guide is a great addition to the “Best Tools” pages.
Gary T.
Good start Stuart. One thing I would like to see is a fuel gauge indication and location of the fuel gauge (ie on battery or drill).
Dwain (OZ Tool Talk)
Hi Stuart.
Great work! If i was consulting the list to make a purchase, the only piece of info that is lacking to me is the release date. Am I looking at a four year old drill, or something released last month?
As others have said, knowing whether its a hammer drill would also be good, but columns are at a premium 😉
Love your work.
Stuart
That could be a misleading property. Bosch’s 12V Max PS31 drill/driver is long in the tooth, and they have since come out with the PS32 brushless version, but the PS31 is still one of the best compact drills I’ve used.
I am only adding in current and relevant models, and so release date shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
For instance, I left out Bosch’s DDB180 since it was superseded by the DDB181. I also left out the DDS180, for now, since that’s the same drill as the DDS181, but it’s kitted with lower capacity batteries.
Jerry
Neat chart. I agree with the previous poster about dropping the price, especially if you want or need to declutter the chart to free up space for other data.
Michael Veach
Very much appreciated tool. As you said adding tools would be better for now. The refinement can come later
Todd H
Why isn’t Metabo and Hilti ever compared with all these others drills? They are incredible machines and should along side with the rest of these. That would really help during a true search to have them all together.
Nathan
I’d say most likely because of the price difference and marketing.
Dwain (OZ Tool Talk)
Metabo is popular in Europe, but not much in the US, where Stuart is. Hilti is not a mainstream product, its a specialist brand (and won’t get many clicks). I’m sure Stuart intends to add Milwaukee, Makita etc in time.
Stuart
Metabo isn’t mentioned often because I have zero experience with their tools, and zero contact with their product managers or anyone who can answer a question not explicitly mentioned in a press release or public product page. Out of sight, out of mind, out of site.
I don’t have any experience with Hilti either. I came across their new hollow bits once (https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/hilti-hollow-hammer-drill-bits/%3C/a%3E%29, but other than that, Hilti is completely unfamiliar to me, outside of some basic knowledge.
Certain brands will be excluded from the comparison page. If I cannot verify specs, or fill in blanks, then a brand won’t be added to the list until I can. That’s not ideal, but it’s better than listing a product with inaccurate or incomplete specs.
Tim C
I’ve been hoping you’d add milwaukee and makita to this list at some point Stuart. Any plans to do so?