Thread: going cordless - which brand is best for me?

For domestic and handyman use, I’ve found that the Ryobi gear exceeded my expectations. I have a 36 volt chainsaw, and an 18 volt whipper snipper and circular saw all of which are great for what I use them for. If you want full on professional kit that you’ll be using every day, then it depends on what you will buy the most of - garden tools or power tools. Stihl makes very good and very expensive cordless gardening tools and is into things like demo saws, etc now as well. As for power tool range in a professional range, I have no first hand experience with newer brushless gear - there’s some great kit out there if you have the money.

Ok, my experience is with top end pro stuff and I bought into Makita's battery system 18 months ago after years with Panasonic and its been faultless.
The impact driver gets used every day, the drill several times a week. Battery life with how I use gear has been excellent, but I think most everyone uses Panasonic cells in their batteries for the pro stuff.

One work mate is with Makita and his experience is the same, our fourth year has Milwaukee, as does my old apprentice and they've had great performance from their stuff too. Milwaukee's range is incredible.
A chippie mate has gone Makita after using a mix of Hilti, Fein, Festool and Hitachi.
He's kept his Hilti hammer drill but offloaded everything else and is happy.
He reckons Hitachi have dropped the ball compared to the others in the last little while.
The new DeWalt stuff is getting good reviews as well.

Like Rick said,stay away from Hitachi,it isn't the same level as the others.

For gardening tools i have no idea,but have used the latest Stihl chainsaw,and i was absolutely blown away.Quietness,power,and battery life were absolutely amazing.

great response, thank you

I was edging towards Makita as they have a wide range and I like the way they double up the batteries for the higher voltage garden tools. So I guess my mind is made up.

Mikita are certainly not at the cheep end of the market. Mind you I had my 18v black & decker driver (before they were impact drivers) for over 10 years, so I tend to get my monies worth.

I was using the Milwaukee 18v range of tools for the last five years but Ive since been buying Dewalt tools instead.
I started with the 54V cordless power saw, brilliant bit of gear.
Now all the tools i buy are dewalt, recipro saw , drills, hammer drill, grinders etc.
Even my 12 year old bought a dewalt chainsaw.
The 18V tools all work with the 54V batteries which is great.
Cant rate them enough.

I needed a new cordless drill and couldn't turn down the $199 for an 18V brushless AEG with a 6Ah battery + charger from Bunnings.
So I've been slowly stocking up on the other AEG stuff and so far so good. The whipper snipper is pretty awesome.
Got my eye on the chainsaw next.
AEG have got a 58V range too, but for my needs I couldn't really justify the extra cost. Happy with their 18V stuff so far.

Why do people post questions in General Chat when there are assigned sections for those questions, e.g., Tool Time?