Decisions, decisions

I am in the market for a new cordless drill/driver to replace my old faithful 21 year-old Makita. I have narrowed my search to the Milwaukee 2411-22 12 volt Sub-compact hammer drill-driver and the Bosch 36618-02 18-Volt 1/2-Inch Compact-Tough Litheon Drill/Driver. Both are in the same basic price range; $159 and $153.25 respectively at Amazon.com. While the Bosch has more torque-400 vs 275 for the Milwaukee, I like the size, hammer feature and the warranty of 5 years vs 3 for the Bosch. Also, the battery on the Milwaukee appears to last longer. If anyone has extensive experience with either tool, I would appreciate your experience and/or opoinions. Thank you.

Never mind. I ordered the Milwaukee, although could have had the Bosch for $99.00 + tax at Lowe’s.

I hope you made the right choice. It always comes down to what applications you’re using your drill for. If you drill into masonry work, you need to have a hammer drill, but if you never need to drill into brick, there’s no reason to carry around the extra weight that the percussion clutch adds to the tool. The Milwaukee is definitely a good option if you want expandability through bare tools, since they have a ton of tools on their platform, though with a 12V drill you will not be able to do the really strenuous tasks like drilling and setting lag bolts if you need to do any deck repair or the like. Conversely, if you’re using it for home repair such as hanging blinds, or installing lights or other hardware, you’ll like how compact and light the 12V tools are; though I am still skeptical of the usefulness of a hammer function on a 12V drill, but who knows, maybe I’d like it once I tried it.

Thanks for the input. I will not be using it for any heavy duty work. I did use it to drill holes in brick, and the hammer seemed to help. As with anything, it has its limitations, but I think I made the correct choice.

Milwaukee makes a damn good tool. Good Choice