Joel Spangler

You've probably already made your decision by now, but went with Ridgid's portable in my shop. I started out with a dewalt track saw and a REALLY cheap junk craftsman table saw. My thought is that with the track saw, I'd only be putting smaller cuts through the table saw. While the $99 black Friday junk saw from sears didn't meet my needs - it cut poorly and couldn't take a DADO blade. I was able to pick up one of ridgid's saws from Home Depot on a good sale, and it makes nice cuts (with a good blade), and you can use a DADO blade. The dado blade was actually one of the deciding factors - a couple of years ago when I purchased my portable it was one of the few under $600 that could use one. The competition is better today and I may have made a different choice, but I'm happy enough with my current setup. The ridgid's opening in the extendable side fence is also an excellent place to put a router. If you look around you can find several articles of people who did the same thing, or I can try to take some pictures if you need me to. PS - editing because I didn't do very good at mentioning that the track saw and my paulk style workbench are my most favorite tools in the shop. I build quite a bit of large projects "built ins" using plywood, and the track saw is SUPER useful.