If you’ve been following Tool Craze, you already know that Ryobi is coming out with 18V brushless versions of their cordless angle grinder, cordless 7-1/4 inch circular saw, impact driver and cordless reciprocating saw. You also know that these were spotted in countries outside of the USA, except for the brushless reciprocating saw and impact driver which we know is coming to the USA, but we didn’t know when they would be released. A new video from Ryobi teases us with the release of 4 new brushless 18V cordless power tools, all four mentioned above and they’re all coming to the USA and will be released in November.
The teaser video briefly shows all four tools and lists what type of tool they are and clearly state that they’re all brushless but they didn’t show us model names or specs. I’m sure Ryobi thinks nobody knows about any of these four tools yet, but luckily for the Tool Craze universe, we know exactly what models they are.
We know the brushless 18V reciprocating saw is model P517 which we covered here and here, we know the brushless 18v impact driver is model P238 which we also covered here and here, we know the brushless 18V angle grinder is based on the R18AG-0 model, and also the brushless 18V 7-1/4 inch circular saw will be based on the R18CS7 Australian model. Notice how I said will be based on because they might be the same or there might be some differences. Sometimes there are slight or major differences between USA Ryobi tools and world models.
I can already tell you that the USA spec Ryobi 18V brushless circular saw has two major differences between the Australian model. First of all the blade is on the left side on USA model and unlike the Australian model, the USA spec doesn’t have a vac port on the upper blade guard. This is a feature not seen on USA circular saws but seen in other world markets. There’s also a third not so big difference in which the USA spec circular saw has a less beefy looking shoe – rather the bevel gauge part doesn’t look as beefy as the Australian model.
You can learn more about the USA spec P517 brushless reciprocating saw here and here, and about the USA spec P238 impact driver here, however we’ll soon learn about the USA spec brushless angle grinder and circular saw when the info is released.
A big thanks to Daniel for spotting the video!
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Also: a brushless impact driver. You can see it briefly if you look closely. It’s one of the images.
updated
if you want to learn more about that brushless impact driver, we covered it before here: https://toolcraze.net/tool-updates-ryobi-18v-brushless-impact-driver-p238-reciprocating-saw-p517-pics/
I am so excited for the upcoming tools from ryobi. For some time i have loathed the fact that my family always gives me hell for buying into a non brushless (or non brushless where it matters) platform. Now i have my drill and ill have my circular, grinder, impact, miter, and recip but i never really use recip so no real gain there. Now I can feel pride in my savings while still getting those pro features that everyone loves.
Makita will always be number 1 as far as tools to me but my ryobis have earned a spacial place in my heart and on my work bench!
The guys at toolbox buzz just did a large cordless reciprocating saw test that included the new brushless Ryobi one. I was saddened to see it didn’t fare very well in their tests. One would hope it would’ve tested somewhat competitively with the Milwaukee and Dewalts of the world. Would be interesting to do a head-to-head against the old model and find out if it’s really any better. Same goes with the other 3 new brushless tools. Just because you convert from a brushed to a brushless motor isn’t a magical guarantee of drastically improved performance.
I keep really wanting to buy into a different cordless tool line. I’ve had the old Craftsman C3 stuff for over a decade. The prices of that stuff has skyrocketed on ebay with people realizing it is well and truly dead and are buying while they can. If I wanted to sell it and jump to Ryobi, Dewalt, or Milwaukee, I’d have to do that now. Just not sure about how much better new brushless One+ stuff will be than the old One+/C3 stuff.
It doesn’t necessarily have to have higher performance. It could give longer runtime or longer motor life. They cost much less than Milwaukee’s so why would it need to be equal in performance? Isn’t that sort of the point and a great thing for the consumer, to only pay for what you need and have several options?
For that matter, anything is better than the old C3 since as you noted, it is dead. It was never a good choice vs Ryobi because Ryobi kept the same battery platform and had more tools for it. Ironically the Craftsman line “used” to have almost the same identical battery format, to the point where the packs were interchangeable between both brands’ tools and charger if you trimmed off a little plastic tab on the packs, then they went and changed it.
IMO the only good thing remaining about the old Craftsman line was that TTI continued to make the small wet/dry vac for it, while today everyone seems to think you need a 3+ gallon whopper of a wet dry vac.