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New Small But Tough 18V Drills From Bosch

New Small But Tough 18V Drills From Bosch

Chris   June 16, 2011  
0   0  
Bosch_HDH181_DDH181

One of the biggest drawbacks of 18-volt cordless drills is their large size, and this is probably the main reason why the smaller ultra compact lines have been growing so fast over these last few years. Well it appears that Bosch has taken these 'small' ideas to their 18-volt line and are offering new smaller drills across the entire 18V line. Even the drills you would expect to be big, like hammer drills, have also been slimmed down; but this also means the compact drills are even smaller.

Bosch claims the new Brute Tough drills are up to a half a pound lighter, and up to 15 percent more compact then the closest competitor at 4.7lbs for the DDH181-01 Drill/Driver and 4.9lbs for the HDH181-01Hammer Drill/Driver. This was probably true up until DeWalt announced their new line of 18V drills. None the less, we are happy to see the tools getting smaller, and we will just have to wait until we get both in our hand to see which is truly the smallest. And obviously there is more to these drills then size. Coptool.com has a few good photos of the size differences that I will link to at the bottom.

So we know they are small, but are these Brute Tough drills brute tough? When Bosch first started making drills, they would demonstrate their toughness by dropping their drills off of a ladder. I remember seeing these drills plummet to the concrete off of 10-12 foot ladders. Now Bosch has taken these toughness test to the next next next level; at a recent press event at Bosch HQ a couple of these new drills were tossed from a helicopter at over 500-feet, they hit the grass and survived. Their all metal gear train and clutch have proven to be strong.

These new drills also come with Bosch's brand new Lithium-Ion High Capacity (HC) batteries. They offer up to 50 percent longer run-times, and cold weather performance that is truly amazing. How amazing? How about a battery that operates in temperatures down to -4 degrees Fahrenheit. Another nice feature is the addition of a built-in fuel gauge.

The only problem we have with Bosch's new line up is their selection. They have so many options that it could be hard for you to choose. Just be aware that the models with numbers 181- come with the new HC batteries, the models with numbers 180- use the older batteries. Models ending in ***-01 come with (2) FatPack batteries, models ending with ***-02 come with (2) SlimPack batteries, and models ending with ***-03 come with (1) FatPack and (1) SlimPack battery.

[:cicn:] HDH181-01 [:cicn:] DDH181-01 [:cicn:] DDS181-01

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