Earlier this week I decided to to find myself the best SDS cordless rotary hammer drill because I think I need one.
There was a huge sales coming up and I thought I could score huge discounts on my cordless rotary hammer drill.
I need one because I am doing a lot of drilling while installing things in the village house we are building, and my old drill, which is a wired Black + Decker, is difficult to use when I need to drill holes on high places. Constantly pulling extension wires has also got tiresome.
Aside from that, I am also going to drill through holes on the wall to do the CCTV cabling, so it makes sense to have a powerful drill.
That said, I scouted online for different kinds of cordless rotary hammer drill which are available in the market.
Finding the SDS best cordless rotary hammer drill
Now, when looking online, there’s limitless choices. Brands like Makita, Bosch, DeWalt, Stanley, Hikoki, Milwaukee and Total are among household names to DIY people like myself.
Power tools from these brands are not only famous, but also very expensive when bought in brick and mortar hardware stores.
I made some research and found out the DeWalt DCH173 was one of the best ranked cordless rotary hammer drill.
Buying the SDS drill
I looked the drill up in Lazada and was pleasently surprised to find out that I could buy the drill for just RM359.71, inclusive of two batteries.
Reviews of the product were also very positive with the drill scoring 5 stars all the way. I placed my order and was very happy I managed to get the drill at the cheapest price.
I however looked up the official DeWalt Malaysia website online, and there was no model DCH173, with the DCH072 model (cheapest SDS cordless rotary hammer drill) sold beyond RM1,100 in the official DeWalt store.
This got me wondering of the authenticity of the first DeWalt DCH273 I found, and so, I canceled my order, and messaged the seller to enquire about the warranty of the drill.
This is where I was told that the drill is only given a 6 months local warranty and I need to send it back to the store if there are any issues. That’s a red flag when it comes to authencity of a product because most authentic products will provide world wide or at least regional warranty. This was enough to sew doubts over the authenticity of the DeWalt DCH273I was buying.
So I did more research about fake power tools.
What I found was that it isn’t easy to differentiate fake power tools and genuine ones, and that China is one of the biggest manufacturers of power tools.
I also looked into the comments of the DeWalt drill I wanted to buy and noticed many comments saying the word ‘genuine’ a bit too often, so that got me suspicious.
I started to question other major brands I sold online as their prices were ridiculously cheap if compared to their prices in stores.
Power tools are already dangerous when used and I don’t want using fake ones which could malfunction while in use.
Shifting away from major brands
So I decided to go for local or Chinese brands which are known to be reliable and were unlikely to be imitation.
This was when I started to do comparisons between drills as you can see below.
Note that I also included major brands as well as a comparison.
As you can see, Dong Cheng and DCA, two popular Chinese brands seem to offer better specifications if compared to the rest.
DeWalt, despite being the cheapest, was out of the question because I was worried I would be buying non-genuine drills. Bosch and Makita were just too expensive although like DeWalt, I could find cheap ones which are questionable in terms of authenticity.
So it was literally between DCA and Dong Cheng because they were more affordable, had bigger concrete drill bit size and seem to have better input energy. Dong Cheng was also recommended by some workers for being powerful but I later found out it is as powerful as DCA.
I noted that DCA and Dong Cheng are brother and sister, but Dong Cheng has official presence here in Kuching, and so I decided to just buy Dong Cheng despite its higher price. I also prefered blue as compared to green.
The blunder purchase
Online, I managed to get the drill for RM336 inclusive of delivery with a six month zero interest installment plan. I bought the drill stand alone because I had a blunder purchase.
You see, I actually thought I got the drill and batteries for RM607 (with a six month zero interest installment plan), but then realized this was just the charger and 2 batteries. I couldn’t cancel the order as it was already shipped.
In real fact, if I had been more careful, I could actually get the whole set for RM848, but I made a blunder, and now ended spending an extra RM950 for everything. Tsk tsk…
Conclusion
Anyway, I’ll review the power tools here when I get them, and I hope I made the right choice.
To follow articles related to my Dong Cheng power tools, check the link below.
