ToolBane

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-18-Volt-ONE-Lithium-Ion-LITHIUM-HP-9-0-Ah-High-Capacity-Battery-2-Pack-P168/304740785

I guess I also notice they *happen* to have this sale on a solid drill/impact combo on Makita’s 18V line if you catch it in time: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Makita-18-Volt-LXT-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-Driver-Drill-and-Impact-Driver-Combo-Kit-2-Tool-w-2-2Ah-Batteries-Charger-Bag-CT225R/205995895

If you know for certain you’re almost exclusively going to be doing small things, I’d honestly just get correspondingly small tools, meaning 12V stuff from Milwaukee or Makita. Besides being smaller, both the tools and batteries cost less. Milwaukee has by far the broadest range of 12V products but Makita’s 12V stuff is (usually) even smaller in form-factor. Here’s a decent Milwaukee combo: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-M12-12-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-Drill-Driver-Impact-Driver-Combo-Kit-2-Tool-w-2-1-5Ah-Batteries-Charger-Tool-Bag-2494-22/203111686 And one from Makita: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Makita-12-Volt-MAX-CXT-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-3-8-in-Drill-and-Impact-Driver-Combo-Kit-with-2-1-5Ah-Batteries-Charger-Case-CT226/206106306 If you weren’t in a rush to buy I’ve noticed that combo kit not too infrequently goes on sales around $100 (around holidays, etc). Ryobi stuff as previously suggested works perfectly fine for intermittent home use and at very friendly prices. They are a bit clunkier though if the brunt of what you’re doing is very small screws on small or delicate projects.

With X2 on a lot of their high-drain tools Makita can for the most part afford to “fall behind” a little in the max-capacity department so I guess they’d rather prioritize on releasing the right product. Which is fine to me if they need. Admittedly I don’t have a terribly strong utility for anything larger than the 5Ah batteries that I have (I use these things for hobbies and projects etc, not for employment), but even to me higher capacity batteries would be convenient on occasion. It’s amazing how fast Makita’s biggest impact wrench can get a 5Ah battery to read half-empty. What it reads I’m guessing mostly happens by way of how they design their battery protection but it still has practical consequences.

I wonder if the batteries have been ready for some time but Makita could be waiting to update a few more X2 tools so new buyers aren’t stumbling into annoying compatibility issues unaware

Definitely screwed up

It’s not a trivial design mistake, one would think. How many hundreds of hours went into that and somehow that makes it past the design team?

Yowzas yeah that’s a fantastic price. That’s the kind of price that makes one invent an excuse to need the tool.

Wait how do we know the Dewalt is hypoid as well? They seem to have pulled one over on some reviewers if that’s the case. But it had not escaped me that Dewalt consistently refers to it as “wormdrive style” on their homepage without any further disclosure or clarification. A real wormdrive would have justified more bragging rights in the eyes of some customers. Shame, Dewalt Shame

I’m murican so maybe that’s why I’m not following your question, but I think the clarification you’re asking for is if the Dewalt is an actual wormdrive? It is, unless Dewalt is employing some really shady marketing, the first and presently only such cordless wormdrive on the market. That’s almost certainly how it beats Makita’s X2 for having the highest power output for circular saws on the market. I’m sure you’re already quite aware of how Makita’s hypoid drive is more or less a hybrid between worm and standard to gain much of the benefit of worm drive without so much efficiency loss.

4-pole vs brushless will get more interesting as time goes on because brushless still has more ability for computer-controlled modulation. Drivers would probably continue going down the brushless path while larger, obligatory high-output tools like saws, sanders, and planars may be better kept as 4-pole.

As already mentioned, quite a few Makita X2 tools beat out the Flexvolts in independent comparisons. The circular saw seems to be the lone example that is commonly regarded as going in Dewalt’s favor, largely predicated on stall-resistance, although it’s a worm drive vs hypoid...so there’s some apples to oranges with that. In theory the efficiency of the hypoid drive would be getting more run time per amp hour while the extra stall-resistance of the worm drive would come up as an advantage far less often in real-world settings.

Another good point, that

Yeah who was trying to keep up with who again? 🤣

Unfinished product getting rushed out the door a bit I guess. Stuff happens.

Woodworking => Makita Automotive => Milwaukee But really you could do the opposite and still be completely happy

A lot of the subcompact models don’t look that much smaller than the compact units until you have them sitting together. This subcompact circular saw certainly looks smaller than Makita’s other 6+1/2” circulars.

Strange, I ordered the bare tool and it came with the port

Giving it a second look, it does have the smaller battery on it in the OP pic. That might indicate it isn’t aiming for overwhelming power either...but who knows. It could simply be an aesthetic decision for advertising purposes. I’m not sure if you typo’d above but the Makita does have a dust port and a really good one, too. I’ve loved how smooth the thing is both for visibility and being crazy clean. Clean enough I have no hesitation running it indoors.

Maybe the tallness will prove indicative of the relative power of the thing. Although I’m skeptical it would be enough to warrant Dewalt making it handle 1/2” bits, which Makita’s compact router is not built to accommodate. I was more curious if they might shoot for a higher-power Flexvolt router. Not because I would buy it, but to incline Makita to do perhaps develop an X2 router that themselves. Alas, that would have been a very tall ask. May not even be feasible really.

Speaking of new batteries, any rumor on when? It feels like things have been relatively quiet on the Makita front lately.

Makita’s compact brushless router hits 30krpm

Yeah, that thing

Heard something about a subcompact circular saw coming