I'm hearing from good sources that li-ion technology, even as popular as it is, is very young and is an intermediate step and still evolving with some current problems, like not running in very cold/not charging either, stopping for no reason...then recharging back to full capacity is a couple of minutes, etc. What I hear is the better technology today and for the future is the Li-Nano power tools (Li-nanophosphate), but the only ones that have it in the US right now is DeWalt and Black&Decker VPX. To quote the writer, "14.4 Nano impact is the most lightweight, reliable, powerful and long-lasting driver in the world." Google it for references if you must.

I hope the Makita isn't a cheap imported drill. It cost $150. Makita is a Japanese company although I believe they have made some tools in America. At this point, most of their tools will be made in China. we were taught in 8th grade metal shop to tighten the chuck on the drill presses from each of the three holes. Years ago in a forum far, far away this very question was asked. The consensus was that the quality of the chuck was inversely proportional to the benefits derived from using additional holes to tighten the chuck. In other words, cheap chucks need additional tightening while expensive ones do not.

B&D managed to trash their name pretty well by producing cheaper and cheaper tools. They have even made drills without ball bearing, just little wells between plastic to hold the drill & motor shafts and some lube. It sold for about $25. It might be OK for an apartment dweller hanging a few curtain rods, but not much more. Rockwell sold the tool divisions and they had to be renamed. B&D picked it up, renamed it Dewault (after purchasing the radial arm saw company and shutting it down) and have proceeded to do about the same thing as they did to their original name. Rockwell also sold other tool lines to Pentair, and Delta & Porter-Cable came back to life. Pentair has now sold off the lines again, and B&D picked up Porter-Cable and Delta. Look for those lines to head for the dirt pretty quickly. Porter-Cable had already stated to produce a separate line of 'homeowner' tools at a lower price that had started to spoil the name. The homeowner market is viewed as larger than the professional market, and since any business not growing in market share is a failure out comes the cheaper junk. Delta has a line of stationary tools (like the portable planers) made overseas now. The large industrials are still OK, but expect cost cutting even on those to catch up. A motor for a Rockwell/Delta Unisaw runs a couple hundred $$. Baldor made them for many years. You can purchase a homeowner tool for the price of one of these motors. B&D will probably decide it is not worth the capital they have tied up to continue supplying the industrial tools and lower the quality and price in a run for more market share. Luckily most of these tools last darn near forever (some new bearings once in a while, and maybe a motor) so at least the existing ones will still be floating around. A Unisaw still runs $1000-$1500 depending on motor type and options, so they have never been a typical homeowner tool, but the quality is outstanding. The import tools still cannot get there, but the $500 price tag for a 10 inch cabinet saw attracts a lot of buyers. I have some Paslode nailers that run on butane, but those are the only cordless tools. The battery ones just do not have the long term durability in heavy use even though batteries have gotten better than the old nickel cadmiums. Chuck quality remains pretty poor, and the added weight of the batteries does nothing to improve handling.

lol. don't be scared! look at the bottom of the erplace page and there's a question that sounds familiar. in that page i sent a couple back. i didn't look threw it carefully. i thought they said something about the ball doing some kind of locking? again i don't have 1 of these so we're both learning something i was thinking, those drills are used for holes overhead, there would be lots of debris dropping on the drill. if the turd didn't maintain, it could be just mucked up?