I can't even recommend DeWalts corded stuff anymore. In the last few years their warranty service has gone from "It broke and you don't have a receipt? Serial number checks out, we'll send you a new one." to "It broke 3 months into a year warranty and you do have all the receipts? Well, send it in to one of our sketchy third party repair centers for a quote."

Screw that, I'll just buy another off amazon and return the broke one for far less hassle. And I'll buy a different brand next time.

Milwaukee has an incredible catalog of cordless stuff. As a Makita, I sometimes get jealous.

I prefer Bosch for corded, but since it's not an ecosystem, Im not brand loyal there.

Hilti for powder-actuated (I guess)

Venture Capitalism is one of my least favorite flavors of capitalism, I don’t even like the original

Festools are OK but they are not worth it IMHO. We used to say it's the tools for those who buy a 5000$ bike before knowing how to ride.

I delayed buying a decent drill/driver for a goddamn decade because I was paralyzed with indecision about which battery system to get locked into.

I don't buy cordless anymore. If I can have a wire I get it, it's cheaper, and I've had batteries die in the middle of the job way too many times. And I've had batteries just break/stop charging. And these batteries cost almost as much as the tools themselves if you have to buy one by itself.

VCCs are why the industry has gone so hard into the battery craze. Iterative ongoing sales. Should make a skeptic out of anyone.

You can get battery converters

Holy crap this is actually a good AI image. These a subtly scary as fuck!

I love the power drillsaw and the handle to nothing

They run Gringotts

Do you mind asking Judy if it was worth buying the tools used?

You must not make money with your tools.

Having to deal with an extension cord run up 35ft of scaffolding, not having power without a generator, having to run an extension cord through an attic or crawlspace, worrying about blowing a fuse because you are running a hammer drill and a vacuum, or dragging a cord around while doing anything sucks.

Being tied to a proprietary battery system only sucks if you need a tool that your chosen brand doesn't offer. The price of having to buy enough batteries to get through the day does suck, but the convenience and time-saving makes it easier to tolerate.

My Ryobi battery is fine after many years. I actually have a drill + battery from before they started the ONE+ thing. Works fine. And that's why I stuck with them when buying an impact driver, circular saw and band saw (which do require a ONE+ but I make do with 1).

It's such a bullshit though. It's all 18650's on the inside, and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to just swap them out. It's just they are dangerous if shorted (but not as dangerous as powertools), and the actual cell manufacturers just want to shift liability on the end-user device manufacturers, so they won't officially sell them to you. And the latter of course love this because it makes it easy to vendor-lock you in.

Solution - buy batteries off aliexpress and the likes. I'm pretty sure the Chinese folk have it all figured out a long time ago, probably even have the adapters for every brand. Alternative, take dead batteries to your local electronics repair shop, they are likely to be able to perform the swap. Disclaimer: I'm not a handyman, this is not a legal advice or whatever, just chiming in from a field with similar issues.

I used to be that way, then there was a holiday sale for my brand (one drill, one screwdriver with ratcheting). The big trick to batteries is storing them indoors. Yes, it's a bigger PITA, but I've been thoroughly converted. 3 years running and my batteries and tools are still going strong.

Don't get me wrong, I still buy corded for saws-all and stuff like that, but on drill/screw driver, battery works for 98% of all applications (hammer drilling cement being the rare exception).

Check out the torque test channel on YouTube.

Ryobi (rightfully) earned a very bad reputation with their older tools. Their old (dark blue) tools are fucking garbage. But they did a rebrand about a decade ago, and the newer green ones are… Not horrible.

They’re not the best on the market, by any metric. But they’re not trying to be. For the average person who only needs a screw gun every week or two at most, they’re perfectly fine. A DeWalt would be overkill for that kind of customer.

If you’re working in construction or building hobby projects and consistently using them every single day, then yeah you’d want to invest in some nicer tools. But for light (or even medium) duty work, Ryobi is a perfectly valid choice. They’re comfortable to hold, have enough power to cut 3/4” plywood or drive a 3” screw, and don’t get bogged down by a ton of bells and whistles, (cough cough DeWalt’s Bluetooth connection in a fucking screw gun cough cough).