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Consumer Reports' latest breakdown of the battery platforms rankings holds a few surprises for almost everyone, including its selection of Ego Power+ as the "best battery platform for power tools" and "best battery-powered tool brand." The independent nonprofit covers a lot of ground in its rankings, ordering each platform according to a brand's highest-performing string trimmer, leaf blower, chainsaw, hedge trimmer, lawn mower, drill, and impact driver. Along the way, they explain why each component — the tools, the batteries, and the brands — all matter when you're trying to decide what to buy.
Construction pros and hardcore DIYers might be confused when they see how far down the list reputable favorites like Milwaukee and DeWalt are found. Consumer Reports seems to be disentangling consumer battery platforms from the specific needs of construction professionals, since those highly regarded pro brands are often insufficient to the high-voltage, high-capacity needs of home lawn and garden tools. The CR tests emphasize outdoor equipment and don't exactly rank a brand's tool catalog but rather its best tools. And it wasn't ranking distinct brands, either, as many are represented by more than one battery platform. Consumer Reports says it is trying to "give [its] members an idea of how a line of tools performs as a whole," supplying a shortcut to understanding battery ecosystems in which a brand's batteries and compatible tools work together.
Read more: 3 Refrigerator Brands Consumer Reports Says To Skip (And The Best Alternatives)
Ego Power+ earns top marks from customers and experts alike
Consumer Reports' rankings are topped by Ego Power+, followed by Stihl AP and two Makita platforms that work with both bulky outdoor equipment and construction power tools like drills and saws. Most of the remaining top-ranked options are outdoor-only platforms with batteries between 40 and 80 volts. Milwaukee's M18 platform rounds out the top 10.
The Consumer Reports rankings are useful to homeowners, and their findings line up with consumer ratings. The 150-plus Ego products sold at Lowe's average ratings of almost 4.5 stars, and while it hasn't been long since we said Ego was among the power tool brands you should avoid based on user reviews, the equipment does seem to be improving. Perhaps more importantly, other professional reviewers think highly of Ego's battery-powered lawn tools as well. Ego's leaf blower "dominated the showdown" in the comparison tests from the YouTube product reviewers at ProjectFarm, for instance, while Ego mowers and string trimmers are also highly regarded in various rundowns.
Consumer Reports' rankings shows that Ego chainsaws are one category the brand nearly dominates. They tested chainsaws from every brand in the top 10 except Stihl and DeWalt, and while Makita's best outperformed Ego's best in reliability, Ego was tops in owner satisfaction surveys and Consumer Reports' lab tests. Other experts agree, with Pro Tool Reviews rating Ego's CS2005 the best chainsaw for home use and GearLab naming it "best overall battery chainsaw." Critics of the chainsaw's performance freely acknowledge that its battery ecosystem and price still elevate them to contenders.
Picking a battery platform for your needs
In spite of all the depth Consumer Reports brings to its individual tool reviews, the attempt to merge outdoor and home improvement equipment discounts some of the quality users recognize from established power tool brands, notably those that don't specialize in outdoor equipment. Since CR based its ratings off of platforms offering at least three of the tested product types, the brands needed to have at least one highly rated piece of outdoor equipment to rank well. If a brand specialized in construction tools and offered top-tier drills, saws, grinders, and sanders, its overall ranking would still suffer if its outdoor equipment was subpar. The methodology so prioritizes outdoor tools that the top pick doesn't make a single drill, driver, or construction saw. In fact, seven of Consumer Reports' top 11 battery platforms will not power most of the essential DIY carpentry tools.
Using these rankings to make decisions will sometimes require digging the signal out of the noise. Ultimately, it's Consumer Reports' tool ratings that are the most valuable, so the best way to consider these rankings might be to only focus on what applies to your needs. A price-conscious casual home DIYer who doesn't need top-tier performance might be drawn to Ryobi's tools, for example, rather than the superior Makita battery platform. If you need the lawn and garden tools, you might decide that a pricey and slightly flawed dual-battery Milwaukee mower is worth the investment because it works with the same M18 batteries as the brand's well-regarded construction tools. Or, perhaps you'll invest in completely different battery ecosystems between your lawn and construction tools to get the best of both worlds.
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Read the original article on Hunker.
