The cheap dad.
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).
Dewalt is not an industry brand anymore. It’s a household brand now.
Nah, Dewalt still make some tools that are trade spec, their 60v tools are the real deal.
Same company makes Ryobi as Milwaukee.
Yes Ryobi isn’t as good as Milwaukee, it’s their cheaper brand. But it is way better now than it was.
Not everyone needs to screw in a thousand screws into a deck everyday. Most people don’t even need an impact driver. Ryobi is perfectly fine for the majority of home owners.
I’ve broken a bunch of Ryobi drill bits. Aside from that all my Ryobi stuff has worked perfectly. Now I’m committed to Ryobi because one battery fits basically any tool. Smart move.
Guess I graduated from WagHorts Community College of Wizard-ish-ry.
I’m a Ryobi guy. I’m a hobbyist/diy guy, I don’t use them professionally. I went with them for 2 reasons:
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bang for the buck. I want a good deal, I went something that’s going to do anything I can throw at it. My first tool was a 1/2" impact wrench rated at I think 1150 ft/lbs, for about $220. That’s as much as you’ll ever need unless you’re working on semis, and the Milwaukee equivalent is probably $600. I also got a hammer drill for $100.
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I’m pretty sure they have way more tools that use the same battery than anyone else on the market. My favorite is my soldering station with temperature control, but they make everything!
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Yup! My Ryobi drills and batteries that I got that are labeled One World Technologies, Inc. that I got about 8? years ago are still going strong!
(cough cough DeWalt’s Bluetooth connection in a fucking screw gun cough cough)
wat
I wish I were making it up. DeWalt calls it Tool Connect, and it’s meant to be a way to track tools across a job site. Sort of like AirTags for your tools. It’s also meant to deter theft by deactivating the tools once they leave connection range. Basically the same way cars have an engine immobilizer that deactivates the car unless the key’s RFID tag is detected.
In reality, it just gets used to fuck with people, by pairing their screw gun to your phone, then walking away.
I own more drills than I really should for a guy who rarely even does household stuff. The ryobi drill is awful, the other tools are decent. The Dewalt compact 20v is nice, but super heavy for light use. My preferred drill is a black and decker 20v, it’s lightweight and has decent power and speed. I would probably grab the Dewalt if I need to rebuild the deck, but for hanging things, anchoring furniture, and assembling furniture the back and decker is great.
Ah, a fellow muggle!
We didn’t get into Hogwarts. We went to Clortho Public School for Wizards.
We had one and affectionately named it Mr. Wobbly…
Ryobi is just beginner magic that doesn’t really work no matter which house you’re in. Also, these houses are quite often hereditary. My family is a clan of Makita Warriors.
Abandoning my DeWalt family heritage in favor of Mikwaukee was almost like leaving Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’m allowed back to visit, but it’s tense.
I’ve had no issue with my Ryobi tools. They’ve worked extremely well for me.
They’re not tools,that’s a children’s playset…
Skil: even cheaper dad
The truth hurts when I see it.
Decepticon tools!
If it’s good enough for this guy – and by “this guy” I mean the sort of person who would own a Reliant Robin, Trabant, and a Yugo – it’s good enough for me!
Milwaukee for battery
DeWalt for corded
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.
Makita has great corded too so at least you can stay teal for both battery and corded!
Agree when it comes to ecosystems im not tied to dewalt for corded, I have a Ryobi hammer drill because it does what I need.
The only real complaint I have with Milwaukee is that the 12v and 18v are not able to share equipment. I love the 12v gear for being light weight and powerful, but sometimes the tool I need uses the 18v batteries :(
Is your dewalt stuff old? Their new stuff is crap.
I have kind of a lot of dewalt stuff (drill, reciprocating saw, track saw, sander, multi tool, router, table saw, shop vac) and the only issue I’ve had was with their cordless shop vac. I have an older right-angle drill with the old style batteries and I don’t have any complaints with that either. Did I choose to commit to dewalt? Not exactly, but once I had a few of their batteries it seemed silly to get other tools that require different batteries. I know there are adapters. If I could start over I’d probably go with Makita or Milwaukee. I do have a corded Makita jigsaw, which is nice.
some of it, I have a reasonably new table saw, and miter saw.
Hilti for powder-actuated (I guess)
thankfully I dont need powder tools for anything any more.
It’s the battery system that locks you in. I have mostly DeWilt cordless tools and they are totally fine for a home jobber that I am. I do also own some Milwaukee and some Makita.
If I were to re-buy all my cordless tools, maybe I’d go with Makita, but there are some Milwaukee tools I do like as well.
Even so, these tools are not as different from each other as they used to be. DeWalt/Milwaukee/Ryobi and others have been bought out by VCCs and are made in the same factories now.
Lately I look at Festool products b/c I see my youtoobers using them. I fear they are too costly for the likes of a home user like me.
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.
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VCCs are why the industry has gone so hard into the battery craze. Iterative ongoing sales. Should make a skeptic out of anyone.
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A drug dealer gives the first taste for free.
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.
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You can get battery converters
Yep, have one for the older drill to convert to the newer battery.
I was talking about Dewalt batteries to Milwaukee battery converter
Ah, didn’t know that. Thanks for the tip!
Where’s the
Fein gang at? (Had to generate the image with AI so don’t look too closely at it, there are some inventive multi-tools combinations…).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
It’s not necessarily to nothing, it could be a very pro electric lighter.
That saw looks like it comes straight from an anime… I can see that being someone’s weapon of choice.
Pity the Kobalt dads.
Ah, the neighbor starter kits
Team no battery. Won’t get sucked into that mild convenience crack. The batteries cost a boatload and die after one or two years. You know it is a scam if the batteries are all proprietary.
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.
Like most people buying and using them, yes. I do not make money on my tools. Doesn’t mean that I don’t use them daily. Most people do not need it and it is absolutely not worth it for most.
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).
That’s interesting, the only cordless I’ve owned are Ryobi drill and impact driver and did not have the same experience. The batteries died after 18 months or so and I wasn’t going to pay for replacement batteries that would just do the same.
Every generation, the batteries get better and better. My first cordless were old NiCad batteries that slowly died to nothing. Second were a Lithium Ion, but the BMS in the battery made it so they slowly drained some of the cells until they were dead, and the battery stopped charging because of the huge imbalance in the cells.
Newer ones are much better, especially if you get the “pouch” cells. They’ll basically last forever. Even the newer Lithium Ion ones are fine, because they fixed the wonky BMS stuff.
Battery powered stuff is probably better than corded at this point, unless you really can’t manage a battery charger and swapping batteries. Heck, my battery powered chainsaw is better than my old gas powered chainsaw (again, unless you consider battery charging/gas filling), but I don’t ever have to leave my house to go fill up a gas can either, so it’s probably a wash.
I got them in 2019.
Okay so weird battery story. Long story short tools were stolen and replaced all my shit with the cheapest garbage I could get away with until I could reinvest peicemeal…
Got a shitty Black and Decker drill. Drill of course was not great but was mostly for drywall and wood at the time so it was enough… That thing’s battery was god tier. Like I know it wasn’t under super heavy load but I used the shit out of that thing and maybe charged it once every 2 months when most batteries in a drill might last me a week if it’s not a heavy use situation. Never seen anything like it.
Eventually the actual drill died like 5 years on the job but right up til the end that battery never quit. I almost miss the thing now even though I caught flack for having such a shit brand. But knowing what is possible made me wonder what the hell was in that thing. Magic? Uranium? Was it the shit drill just ran on damn near nothing? All of the above?
Maybe planned obsolescence is a truth in power tool batteries…
With venture capitalists on driving the main brands, it absolutely is.
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).
Yeah I stored them indoors. Not for me.
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.
Where’s festool?
They run Gringotts
Just got my first set, Porter Cable, I’ve had their 1/2" drive impact for a few years for working on my car with, never had an issue so I bought the set.
Do you mind asking Judy if it was worth buying the tools used?
Wow I missed that typo, just*
Makita gang
Milwaukee #1
Turquoise all the way
Team Rigid for the warranty and frequent clearance at HD. They’re good tools for someone like me this isn’t CONSTANTLY using them probably.
I have an old Dewalt cordless drill that refuses to die and uses obsolete batteries that none of my other tools use. A corded Dewalt tablesaw. A kobalt powered screwdriver that I like so far, and a growing collection of Ryobi. An old skil branded circular saw and jig saw (corded.) They are all fine for regular household use and weekend projects.
I’m curious if anyone here has tried out the Flex tools at Lowes? I keep seeing them there and it feels like someone must be buying them.
Check out the torque test channel on YouTube.
