# Oooo! Cordless power tools! What are your favorites? What else should I buy now?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooo-cordless-power-tools-what-are-your-favorites-what-else-should-i-buy-now/818581>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 25, 2018, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooo-cordless-power-tools-what-are-your-favorites-what-else-should-i-buy-now/818581 "2018-07-25T21:14:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooo-cordless-power-tools-what-are-your-favorites-what-else-should-i-buy-now/818581/41 "2018-07-30T14:58:34Z")

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After I went through several cordless drills within a decade, I gave up on cordless tools unless they’re muscle-powered.

To be fair, I don’t need my power tools on a regular basis. I’ll go through spurts of using them on a project, and then they’ll sit around in my closet for weeks or months on end.

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**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooo-cordless-power-tools-what-are-your-favorites-what-else-should-i-buy-now/818581/42 "2018-07-30T23:45:19Z")

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> [@RTFirefly](#):
>
> I’m kinda down on cordless tools these days, because the tools themselves may be great, but the batteries go dead after a year or two, and in recent years, the replacement batteries always seem to cost as much as buying new tools (with battery included).

As some others have said, I question the part about “the batteries go dead after a year or two”. I’ve had a Ryobi cordless drill for at least 15 years, probably 20, and it’s still on the original pair of batteries that it came with. To be fair, it doesn’t get a lot of use so the batteries have gone through much fewer than the typical number of charge cycles in that time, and also I’m pretty sure they’re NiCads which probably don’t deteriorate in storage quite as much as Li-ion, but still – the thing is probably old enough to vote and still going strong!

I thought I had an 18v system but I just checked and it’s the older 14.4v, but it’s got lots of power for anything I’ve ever used it for. In any case, replacement batteries are readily available from Amazon should I need them, but these are still fine. They’ve probably lost capacity over the years but for my occasional use I can’t even tell.

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