http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/pro ... 4&id=89050


the drill is superb. Main thing is its very light weight. When i forget to charge the batteries and have to use my dewalt 988, you feel the difference in weight.

It is to put it simply, far superior in every way compaired to the dewalt.

A note on the lithium batteries, it has been said they start to take longer than the 1hr it says to charge them. Mine are taking 1hr 20 mins to charge now, but the runtime of them are still the same


Got it over 1 year ago in usa for £190.

If you bought it in the USA, is the charger 110V?

yes it is, but you can get a 110v to 240v stepup, and this worked fine.

In most cases, the charger works from 100v-250v, 50-60Mz, but this one doesnt

I have the Hammer/Drill/Driver 18v with case and 3x Batteries and its a godsend. Just bought this smaller 18v drill/driver and its awesome. The 18v Makita is lighter than the 12v DeWalt drill driver?? Way more power, and can cope with anything I throw at it.



Bought it from jackcoolstuff on e-bay for £90 including case, postage and import taxes:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MAKITA-18V-LITHIU ... dZViewItem

I'm going to be buying the LXT Jigsaw and then the Circ Saw next!!!

I wanted to buy that drill from the same ebay shop a while back but didn't know how much I'd get charged for postage and tax so just left it.
My uncle's coming over from Canada in a few month so am gonna ask him to bring one. Do you know if it'll be okay for him to buy the batteries over there as well? [/quote]

Hi Gentoo,

The postage for my drill plus taxes worked out at about £40-50.

I'd suggest you buy the whole kit over in Canada, i.e. drill, batteries, charger and case, as it will all work out cheaper. The batts are exactly the same as the UK ones and can be used on UK bought Makita LXT kit, however the charger will be 110v as apposed to the UK’s 240v. You can buy a step down transformer or you could just put a big yellow 110v site plug on it and use it with a transformer. i.e. like the ones used professionally on site!!

Hope this helps you make your decision!!

Cheers

Il 2nd this, couldnt be happier with my combi

May be a silly question but what's the difference between Ni-Cad batteries and li-ion batteries - is it the battery life ?

Cheers

Various factors, but essentially Li-on is superior in every way to Ni-Cad, but you pay for that superiority and have to decide if the extra outlay is worth it.

Lots of waffle about batteries recently in this post.

I have read that the Li Ion batteries are lighter. However, I handled a Ni-cad Makita and the Li Ion version and they felt almost identical. However, this may be because the bodies were not identical.

Are the weights noticeably different?

you was probably comparing a 18v Ni Cad to a 12v lithium. Its said that the 18v littium ion batteries are the same wait as a 12v Ni cad.