Without a doubt a good quality cordless drill is by far the best tool you can ever purchase. I have had one cordless drill for over 8 years and it is still excellent today, besides drilling cordless drills are fantastic for driving screws which is slowly rendering old fashioned screwdrivers a thing of the past!
As with power drills cordless drills can be purchased for as little as £10.00 and can be as expensive as £400.00. Basically you get what you pay for but if you are only driving in the occasional screw a cheap model may suffice but don't expect much! The main disadvantage of cheap cordless drills is the battery power, often you will come to use it and it will be flat-cheaper batteries also take longer to charge than an expensive battery, I have several 18 volt batteries which can be charged in 15 mins, some cheaper batteries take as long as 8 hours!
Cordless drills are excellent because as long as the battery has been charged you can use them anywhere, I have often used them on roofs and up ladders with ease!
Drill / Driver
Cordless drills without hammer action are often called drill/drivers, these are suitable for drilling wood or metal and are good for driving in screws. The higher the battery voltage the more powerful the drill, but the other thing to watch for is the Amperage of the battery- this indicates how long the battery will last when charged! Cheap battery drills often have very low amperage (1.3AH or less) which is displayed as AH on the battery, this stands for Amperes Hour. A battery with low AH will not last very long in use which is even more annoying when you find it takes 3 hours to charge the damn thing! Some professional batteries are 24 volt or 36 volt and are 3AH which is very powerful and will drill the hardest of materials with ease, add to this the fact that they can be charged in 15 mins and you will see the vast difference between cheap and expensive tools. Good quality cordless drills have reversing action and torque control and variable speed. The torque produced by some of these machines is unbelievable and some will easily break screws in half before hitting the torque limit!
Cordless Hammer drill (combi drill)
Cordless hammer drills are similar to drill/drivers but have Hammer action for drilling masonry! I have two of these drills myself but hardly ever use them for drilling masonry as I have a cordless SDS drill which makes easy work of drilling even the hardest of masonry. You can use these drills for drilling bricks etc. or for putting up a shelf but if you needed to drill a large hole through a wall for a pipe or similar a corded drill would be better as although it probably would drill the hole it would probably damage the drill!
Cordless SDS drill
I can not recall having seen a cheap cordless SDS machine for sale but no doubt they will be manufactured by some economy firm. Some drills look like they are cheap SDS drills as that have voltages of 30 volts or more but these are often just normal hammer action drills and not SDS.
For professional results when drilling masonry a SDS machine is the obvious choice!
Cordless right angle drill
Cordless angle drills are a very useful tool for tradesmen and the serious DIY enthusiast, these will drill joists for fun and are great or confined spaces. Look for one with high torque and powerful battery especially if drilling large holes in wood.
