A cordless drill is a very useful tool. Most modern cordless drills are actually two tools, a drill and a screwdriver. Thanks to the low prices, it is good investment also for non-professional users. The cordless drills have also become lighter and the batteries last longer than a couple of years ago. Even better is that the prices have dropped a lot.

There are a number of things you need to take into consideration when deciding what drill to buy. First you need to answer two basic questions:

–      What are you mainly going to use it for?
–      How often are you going to use it?

Cordless drills come in a number of shapes and sizes nowadays. The most important features are:

Power: Higher voltage batteries give you a more powerful drill but makes the drill larger and heavier.

Battery Life: The higher the Ampere-Hour value, Ah, the longer the battery will last. Note that a high Ah value does not make the drill more powerful, but it will take longer before you need to charge the battery. Generally, a high Ah battery is not heavier than low Ah batteries.

Weight: The more you are using the drill, the more important a light drill is. Holding a drill in the shop is different from holding the same drill in an awkward position. In most cases, a light drill is preferred. If you know that you need a powerful drill, then go for power, otherwise settle for a lighter drill.

Three different types of batteries are used in cordless drills, they are:
– Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd)
– Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH)
– Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion)

Nickel Cadmium batteries have been around for a long time. They have a number of disadvantage but they are cheap. Nickel Metal Hydride batteries don’t have some of the shortcomings of Ni-Cd batteries and they are much more environment friendly. But they are more expensive and still have a number of shortcomings. Lithium-Ion batteries are the newest and most expensive batteries. But Li-Ion batteries have a number of advantages, just to mention the most important, lightweight, no memory effect, long lifetime and short charging time. Ni-MH batteries have became less popular, losing out to the cheaper Ni-Cd and superior Li-Ion batteries. Most low-end cordless tools use Ni-Cd batteries while the high-end tools use Li-Ion batteries. Note that Ni-Cd batteries are banned in EU.

If you are going to drill a lot in harder materials, such a concrete, you may want to buy a hammer drill. Hammer drills are heavier and more expensive than standard drills but they add a hammering action, making it easier to drill in hard materials. You can turn off the hammering action when drilling in soft materials. If you are going to use the hammering action a lot, then a corded hammer drill may be a better choice than a cordless model. The hammering actions quickly drains the battery.

Note that with two batteries and a quick charger, you can work non-stop. While you are working the second battery is being charged. Once the first battery is flat, you swap batteries and charge the first battery while you keep on working.