On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 20:12:32 -0400, "Ollie"
wrote:

Any strong pros or cons between these two tools?


Here's the text of a reply I recently posted to another query about
Makita cordless drills:

============================================
I bought a Makita MForce 18V drill about 9 months ago, and couldn't
be happier. When I bought the drill, I knew that I was going to have
to drill several holes in a concrete floor to install 3/8" redheads
(building a wall in my three-car garage) and wasn't sure how well a
non-impact drill would work. As it turns out, the Makita drilled
those holes effortlessly ( eight of them if I remember correctly) and
had plenty of charge left over. I'm sure their 14V drill would
perform accordingly (might require a full battery's charge).

I also believe that the state of cordless drill technology (at least
the non-impact driver types) has reached the point where user features
outweigh battery considerations when choosing a new drill. For my
purposes, I chose the Makita over the other guys for two primary
reasons:

1) The Makita fit my hands better than any other brand. I have
medium-size hands, and my drill-fondling trips to Lowes (and others)
led me to feel that the Makita fit me better than the others.

2) I already owned a 9V Makita drill with the stick-type battery, and
the charger that comes with the MForce drills will handle that battery
as well as the battery for the MForce drill. So, I now have two
decent cordless drills.

I too, thought that I didn't want an 18V drill, but after handling
both the 14V and the 18V MForce drills, I realized that the small
weight difference (5.3 lbs vs. 4.6 lbs) probably wouldn't matter for
my usage. To date I have not regretted choosing the 18V model over
the 14V model.

Still, I think the most important factor is "How does it feel in your
hands"? After all, that's where the drill will be doing its work!
===========================================

Rob