DIYbanter - View Single Post

On 24 Jan 2006 16:57:58 -0800, wrote:

I have noticed Makita and DeWalt SDS drills being sold for under £100
and at prices only 5 years ago cheap DIY SDS drills were being sold at.

That's because volumes have increased all round.

I have no brand loyalty and buy as needed, which is usually a distress
purchase.

That's a bad situation in which to make any purchase, especially of a
tool. It's very important to research properly to get the best value
for money.

I now have no reservation in buying B&Q own brands. They look
and feel well made.

I've looked at and tried some of their products as well as the Ryobi
ones, in quick succession to those from Makita (e.g. drills), DeWalt
(e.g. routers) and in comparison, the TTI products are not well made.
TTI's Milwaukee product is the best from their stable.

Gearboxes and clutch and speed and torque control on Ryobi drills feel
a bit better than the entry level products, but are not as good as
Makita, and nowhere near as good as Festool. The TTI routers are
very poor in terms of plunge mechanism and motor performance. Several
people here have returned them.

I like the idea of the one battery type for all
tools idea. Riyobi and DeWalt push this.

Most manufacturers offer that within their ranges. More important is
to look into the battery quality and longevity and whether one can buy
tools without batteries at all. That can be a significant cost
saving.

I find it irritating having
different chargers on the go. I may go this way with Ryobi and build
the tools up as I go along, as many here speak well of them abd being
well priced with the products to match.

Ryobi has "reasonable" products for their price point. In tool
reviews from numerous sources (worldwide), their products, where
reviewed, typically come third or fourth out of ten. Seldom first,
and seldom bottom. In reviews such as those in Fine
Woodworking,Ryobi tends to score slightly higher on value for money
than on best product.

I was just looking through FWW's annual reviews on various hand power
tools.

TTI's Ryobi brand came near the bottom on biscuit jointers. Their
Milwaukee product did well in angle grinders and circular saws, but
Ridgid (TTI brand sold through Home Depot, similar to PPpro offerings)
was at the bottom.
In 14.4v cordless drills, Milwaukee did well, alongside Makita and
Bosch. Ryobi was close to the bottom.

In SCMS, Bosch, DeWalt and Makita were the leaders, and Ridgid were
markedly behind at the bottom.

In belt sanders, Porter Cable, Bosch and Makita came first in best
overall products with Ryobi 7th after several others. However, Ryobi
did come out best on value for money.

In random orbit sanders, Festool came out as best overall with Metabo
second. TTI's Ridgid products came out best value.

This really illustrates that no manufacturer has a best of breed or a
best of value in every tool category. It also illustrates that
volume manufacturing houses such as TTI have different product quality
levels for their different brands. Milwaukee consistently did better
than Ryobi, for example.

--

..andy