trapper1306

The m12 fuel is night and day better than the brushed one. It'll get you by for light duty tasks great. It has a lot more power than that brushed one. But, having all three, the M18 fuel hackzall is not that much bigger or heavier, but cuts so quick and smooth with so much power it will replace using any other Sawzall for 95% of your tasks. Depends what you're mainly cutting with it.

I would say you are correct in considering either the 2732 or the 2830. Both of those are the current best saws from Milwaukee. The main difference being blade orientation. Some people (mainly east coast) prefer a blade right sidewinder style and others (mainly west coast) tend to like a blade left like a skill saw. If you can find out what he currently uses, left or right side blade, that should be able to help you decide easily which of the two to get.

A 5.0 regular battery on turtle mode usually has no problem doing roughly 7,500 square foot of grass on our property. The 2.0s on it are generally useless unless you have a really small yard. But the 5.0's definitely do the trick for most normal city yards I would say. Especially if you see no use for a 9.0 for yourself, you can purchase 2- 5.0s on ebay for the price of 1 9.0. A 9.0 or a 12.0 will give you a little more power and much more runtime. All depends how big of an area you need to do.

I'm curious to hear more details as well. We had two of the original model, one used for our shop one for home. Both never had an issue with a 5 or 9 ah battery. We recently sold one old one to get the quick lock with the free pole trimmer attachment. The power and speed increase is obvious with the new one and we've had zero issues as well with 5, 9 and 12 ah batteries on the new one.