Well, it wasn't a pretty fight for the Flex 24V brushless drill. Let's break down what happened.
A Fair Fight?
The first thing you might say is, "well Jim, you put a higher-spec M18 model with a 5.0 aH battery against a lower-spec Flex model with a 2.5 aH battery. That's not a fair fight." And... you'd probably be correct. But the majority of YouTube commenters wanted to see how this would compare to the best of the best. And honestly, it shouldn't have taken a 3/4" spade bit -- in pine -- to defeat this thing. I had oak boards and a 6" hole saw lined up... (you saw the hole saw in the overly-dramatic intro). Sadly, we never eve got that far.
I was working with what I had on hand as far as batteries. But, I did bring in the Makita XPH03 at the end (brushed, circa 2016), which has the same torque spec as the Flex:
And I think you'd agree from my test that the Makita still smoked the Flex. Maybe there was some advantage with the "6.0aH" off-brand battery, but we'd really be trying hard to defend the Flex at that point.
Now What?
Just to reiterate, these Flex tools are NOT available for sale. I think my ability to order this kit during a short window of time was a mistake on the part of Lowe's. So I can't just go grab a Flex 5.0aH battery or the higher-spec drill. And I'm not independently wealthy, so when I opened it up and saw what was in there, I didn't rush out to grab a 2.0aH M18 battery at $90 a pop.
But I'll see what I can do and maybe I can do a "round 2" at the beginning of the Impact faceoff and also have a 2.0 ready for that test, as well as some possible different contenders. The Skil PWRCORE 20 from the same parent company, Chervon, is only rated at 450 in-lbs (and I had to find that on Amazon, it's not even listed on Skil's website.) The run-of-the-mill Milwaukee 18V brushless drill is only rated at 500 in-lbs. And there are lots of others in that range. The Makita I used almost seems like the best comparison. I could get a 3.0aH Makita battery and re-run that test? Let me know what you think would be a more fair fight.
UP NEXT - the Impact shootout! The M18 Fuel will show up, but we'll have other competitors this time...
Be sure to SUBSCRIBE on YouTube so you know when the next face-off is posted!
Thanks again to all your support of this new channel! God bless!
- Jim
Look at the "BL" on the FLEX and SKIL has the same "BL" in the same place.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll do a side-by-side of these with other Chervon-manufactured tools soon...
DeleteAgain great video and follow up video! And it would be fun to see it up against the Skil PwrCore 20 just because the Skil has gone up against Milwaukee on other videos I’ve seen and done fairly well.
ReplyDeleteAnother test would be the Ryobi One+HP (MODEL: #PBLHM101B) hammer drill which is rated at 750 as well. Their hammer drill - impact drill kit is only $229 so that would be a great value comparison as well.
One of my knocks against Flex (at this point) is you know Milwaukee, DeWalt and Home Depot will be pushing all those “Buy One Get One” type deals which will way undercut Lowe’s Flex line (and their range of tools). And it may be into see how Lowe’s Kobalt XTR line does against Flex (which I am suspicious that the “insides” could be very similar since Chervon makes both lines.)
RE: Ryobi - guess what I bought yesterdayyyyy... ! Non-hammer version, though, model #PBLDD01K -- because some said the M18 being a hammer drill was unfair. That's BS because the 2803 and 2804 have the same torque and RPM specs and I had the drill in regular drill mode, not hammer mode. But just to be 100% fair....
DeleteThanks for reading the blog, those who do will find out things before the casual YouTube watcher!