My wire cutter disagreement is their flashlight recommendation. They recommend a AA battery flashlight from Amazon that in my opinion is terrible (https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-flashlight/). This article indicates that maybe the referral money is a factor. I wonder how much influence that has.
I thought a big part of it was simply that many Wirecutter picks aren't very good. They are great for areas you aren't knowledgeable enough to assess on your own (and where it would be prohibitive to learn), or where you just need something that's not total junk.
But "not total junk" is a pretty low bar to clear, and that illustrates the fundamental problem of the Wirecutter: it's never going to be for the professionals, the ones who use objects day after day, long enough to form real opinions. Anyone who knows their field will always laugh at the Wirecutter's recommendations, if not the what then certainly the why.
I should probably start off with: yeah, I don't like the Wirecutter drill article or find it useful. They eventually call out their intended target audience:
For most household tasks, a 12-volt drill is more than adequate. It’s the smallest
class of drill, and due to advances in battery and motor technology, such models
have become formidable with regards to power. … If you’re a rabid DIYer with plans
to build a deck, a doghouse, and a tree house, we recommend a stronger, 18- or 20-
volt drill.
They're not reviewing higher end pro tools because that's not their audience. Were pros ever looking at WC for reviews? I know that for tools I'd be looking at more specialized folks like Project Farm or Torque Test Channel.
WC did cover the popular "pro" brands available in America (Milwaukee, DeWalt, Ridgid). Potentially they should've included Makita but Festool and Hilti are way beyond the price point of the home gamer target audience. Hilti especially goes after the fleet market, so even if you're a pro they're not necessarily going to be your goto brand unless you're at a larger company. Anecdotally Milwaukee kit seems to be very popular amongst tradesmen out here. But like with circular saws there's probably some regional variation.
I think WC did miss some important stuff for home gamers and they definitely got it wrong with the Bosch drill. It's small. It's tiny. It's about as long as the DeWalt and about an inch and a half shorter in height. You don't buy it for the power you buy it for the size. If you need to stand it up on the battery, get a bigger one with a foot.
> I have been running the best of the best in tools and battery tech: Milwaukee.
I've found Makita to be better for my line of work at least. I love my older Milwaukee tools. My 10" chopsaw from the early 90s is a solid beast, as well as my worm drive. Newer Milwaukee is a crapshoot, I've had three dead batteries from them, none from Makita. Two burnt out super sawzalls, and a miter saw with no idea what true is.
I will say Milwaukee tools have more power to them, but my Makita ones are more reliable. Less frills, less price too.
I am biased as I do more finishing then rough work, so I have an understanding that Milwaukee is better/quicker for that, but I'll stick with Makita for battery tools. I can go two, three days on a single charge with my miter.
Not my experience, but I think the main argument here is, that every time you want a new tool, you will have to get one from the brand you already have, or also buy new batteries. That annoys me already.
Regardless of the manufacturer, battery technology has increased so incredibly that even the "crappiest" cordless tools are better than those from the early 2000s.
----
Src: retired electrician that has used (and broken) a lot of tools
----
My primary tool of choice is Stanley's upscale brand, DeWalt.
Were I considering to "buy a cheaper tool," perhaps esoteric items intended for single use: instead of Ryobi, I'd settle on Harbor Freight.
Where I spent most of my wiring days [IBEW], the "top tool" was always a competition of Yellow -vs- Red.
> I've long subscribed to the philosophy that you should buy the cheapest tool you can find and use safely, use it until it wears out, breaks, or your skill surpasses the capability of the tool - and only then should you spend money on high quality tools.
Overall, it's not a bad philosophy. But I can think of a couple of complications here:
- For battery-operated tools, standardizing on one system means you can buy a handful of pricy batteries and share them among many tools. Batteries wear out, and eventually need repeated replacement. And only needing to replace, say, 3 batteries from a single brand is convenient.
- A lot of times, it's possible to buy medium-quality tool sets (say, hex wrenches) for less than $100. I'm literally going to use many of them as long as I live. Why not spend $70 and get something halfway decent, instead of the $30 junk?
- If you're doing a big project (refinishing kitchen cabinets, building a deck, etc), that can easily justify spending a few hundred dollars on a quality key tool. A quality drill/hammer driver pair is game changing, for example. Saves countless hours compared to my old gear.
I had Craftsman power tools until battery replacements were only available from fly-by-night companies and a couple of the tools started failing (after 20 years). I wound up buying a couple of DeWalt tools on sale and they've been rock-solid. So I added a couple more as needed. I tried a Ryobi line trimmer a few years ago, and the battery system failed within two weeks. So I took it back and paid $50 extra for a DeWalt version that has run flawlessly. I could save some money by buying less-used tools from a second, cheaper brand. But that would double my battery replacement costs over the next 20 years, and I'd need to do more research for each purchase.
So sometimes a set of "79 auto tools for one low price!" is a good move. And sometimes, mid-to-high end homeowner gear or even a contractor tool is worth the money.
The main downsides of their power tools is the refusal to make them share batteries and that the decent ones get into the Milwaukee/Dewalt tool price areas.
After purchasing the top two Wirecutter picks for electric kettles (Cuisinart and some gooseneck kettle) both died within a year. The gooseneck one was rusted on arrival, clearly awful build quality.
I decided to try paying much more for a Fellow Stagg EKG, and it was a great decision. It’s lasted over 3 years and has been an absolute joy to use compared to the prior mass market garbage.
I often wish for a Wirecutter-like site that prioritizes quality and especially longevity above all else. Wirecutter always focused too much on cost, and even their “upgrade picks” tend to suffer awful quality issues. For years their top blender pick was an Oster that had hundreds of angry reviews about dying within months. Wirecutter ignored the feedback for years despite so many people streaming into their own comments section to vent about it.
I've been there on-site and seen it play out. This isn't me being an armchair enthusiast sat with my DIY kit judging the pros. I've talked to them, used their kit, they've used mine, consistently, on real, fully-paying jobs.
> That professionals throw away thousands of dollars buying conspicuous tools every year
That's exactly what I'm saying in my experience with general construction tradesmen. Now, the argument isn't that a crappy little 9v drill from Amazon will work the same as a proper engineered brand for specialised equipment, but that I have actual real-world experience of a whole number of pros who have explicitly told me they buy light, named gear for visual purposes more than it being better than some homebrand kit for their needs.
"Tradespeople won't lock themselves in if the right tool is on a different platform."
Right, but home users will. I have 5 Ryobi One+ batteries, so there's no way I'll buy a battery-operated tool from a different brand, even if the tool itself is better/cheaper than the equivalent Ryobi product.
"Best" was an important keyword. The suppliers you mention are not always renowned for the user-friendliness of their tools, which - leaving aside any other flaws - is an important part of quality assessment.
That doesn't mean much unless you're their customer. "Works well enough and we have people that know it" is perfectly fine way to pick a tool, even if it is not technically the best one.
Totally agree. The only problem is that batteries are so expensive you need to align yourself with a brand so that you can swap batteries between tools. I wish there was a standard battery spec, so that they were interoperable between brands - but that's unlikely to happen.
Even tradespeople (like union electricians) have this same dispute. In the US, one of the favored brands in the trade is Milwaukee Fuel 18v. Many electrical pros swear by these tools, even to the point of mildly judging people who use consumer gear on paid jobs.
But: other electrical pros will in turn mildly judge the Milwaukee-loving contingent as paying way too much for the logo. Tales will be told of Makita or Ridgid (the latter, a Home Depot house brand) 18v rigs that have outperformed more expensive gear in real conditions.
So, it's fun to talk about, but it seems fundamentally undecidable, at this level of granularity.
At lower levels of granularity -- specific tools -- there are a few legendary products that have been made consistently high-quality for so long that they're almost universally acknowledged to be worth the money, and also that there's little point in paying more. One example that comes to mind is Klein linesman's pliers.
A resource I found useful when I wanted an impact wrench was a breakdown of which manufacturers are behind the different brands[1]. I knew not to waste time comparing a Black&Decker to a Porter-Cable since they're most likely the same thing. I also weighed the reputation of the manufacturer by averaging reviews from multiple brands. Getting lost in the illusion of choice is part of what makes online shopping problematic.
I find that the Wirecutter is awesome for things I will never go into stupendous depth for on my own — like spatulas. For anything more serious than that, it has increasingly been on the decline for years.
reply