New Festool T15 Drill

So I finally did the plunge a few weeks ago a replaced my main drill form the Dewalt Kit and bought the Festool T15 Drill.

Disclaimer

First things first, yes it's a Festool.  Yes it's expensive and I assume it.  After experimenting with the Centrotec Kit that I bought earlier this year, putting the chuck into a normal drill felt cumbersome to operate.  Yes I looked at other brands that were cheaper in price, and would of done an awesome job, but was not convinced that it would of did a better job then the dewalt did with the centrotec chuck.I was looking at the drills for a little while and after looking at the spec, had a bit of trouble deciding between the C and the T series.  So I decided to go try them at a local distributor to see which one would of been a better comfort choice in my hand.  The T series was better in my hand and settled on that model.  Only had to choose the voltage and kit on non kit version.

The Decision

So when I finally felt it was time, I went to the same dealer, going for the T18, non kit.  I did not feel that the kit version was really worth paying for what I used.  For the voltage, I taught that going with the higher voltage, would serve me right.Unfortunately, the local vendor did not carry locally the T18, mainly because it did not sell compared to other brands that sells better.  He could order it but it would take a few days to get it.  But the salesperson proposed an alternative to me which interested me.He had only the 3.0 amps/hour kit, basically, not the latest kit and because of the promotion of Festool for a certain discount amount for the previous model, suddenly, the T15 Kit became somewhat interesting.

In use

After thinking about it, I opted out for the T15 kit and after some use, I did find some use of the the other chucks.  Would I say that the kit is a must for my own use? not really, but I got it and will use it if I need it.With use, chucking centrotec bits felt better then with the adapters used with a non-Festool drill.  So far, after drilling holes and driving some screws (rebuilding deck stairs) went pretty well and very satisfied with the move.I kept the impact driver from the Dewalt Combo Kit I bought and this one is a Keeper.  Unless it will break on me, I don't plan on replacing it with anything soon.  I now also got 2 batteries for each of the drills and having 2 of them running at the same time is a good thing.  Yes I could of done it with the 2 batteries from Dewalt, but did not have the luxury of having a spare fresh battery for longer jobs that could drain the battery 

Technology brief

On the technology perspective, I must admit that the 2 drills don't really compare.  Batteries are Nicad (Dewalt) vs Li-Ion (Festool) and brushed (Dewalt) vs Brushless (Festool).  The brushless portion is one of the reason that got me to change my first decision about the voltage.  By being more efficient, I was willing to sacrifice a bit of voltage, again for my context of use.  If I would use a drill day in day out, my decision might of been different.From a battery perspective, the use of Li-Ion chemical solution make me think of one major thing : different reaction when coming close to the end of a charge.  Li-Ion does not suffer form the same symptoms when it comes close to the end of the charge.  Great thing for a meter for the usage on the base of the drill.

Conclusion

Driver Combo

All in all, very happy with the Drill and Centrotec kit so far and I think this will last for a while before I think of upgrading or changing anything about driving screws or getting holes from tools that fit in my hands.Festool T15 drill