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- Compact and easy to handle
- Good for all mainstream DIY tasks
- Strong on brick and concrete
- Relatively expensive
- Heavy with battery attached
The DeWalt DCD799P2T packs plenty of power into a compact cordless drill, particularly if you’re dealing with bricks, breeze blocks and concrete rather than softwood or plastic. Its two-speed brushless motor reaches speeds of up to 1,650RPM and can deliver up to 74nm of torque, while its 28,050 BPM hammer action can power a decent drill bit through the toughest masonry.
At around £200 to £225 it’s a fairly expensive tool, but is it worth buying if you have a serious project on your hands? I’ve been testing it over the last week to find out.
What do you get for the money?
The drill plus a charger and two 5AH 18V batteries inside a chunky plastic case with steel fixings. It’s a very robust tool in a light orange colour, with a rubberized black plastic grip and the same material used on the rear of the unit and the base where the battery slides and clicks into place. A sliding switch at the top selects the current speed, while there are 15 torque settings for driving screws plus hammer and drill settings, accessed by rotating the dial that surrounds the chuck. The brushless motor requires little maintenance and should give the drill a long working lifespan.
While it’s a powerful drill driver, the DCD799P2T keeps things reasonably compact. It measures only 164mm from the tip of the chuck to the back of the unit. The tool itself weighs just 1.09kg, but the battery adds another 645g to the weight. This isn’t a bad thing, as it balances the weight of the motor at the top of the handle, making it reasonably easy to keep it straight. The keyless chuck can handle bits of up to 13mm in size.
What’s it like to use?
Between the well-balanced, short design, straightforward controls and rubberized grip, the DCD799P2T handles surprisingly well for such a powerful tool. Working on a decking repair and replacement project, I found I could get it into tricky corners where a longer drill might have been awkward. The torque and settings dial is easy to use, and you can switch between forward and reverse motions with a finger on the switch that clicks through above the trigger. The trigger itself allows you to work slowly with a gently squeeze and speed up steadily by squeezing harder. While you don’t get the side handle of the Erbauer ECDT18-Li-2 for extra balance and pressure, I found that a little pressure on the rear of the unit was enough to get most jobs done.
The 22V, 4A charger provided is neat, quiet and compact and takes roughly 70 to 80 minutes to charge the bundled 5Ah batteries. Stamina won’t be a problem with this one. Even having drilled dozens of holes and screwed in dozens of screws, it only dropped one of the three bars indicating charge level.
How does it perform?
It’s a great drill and driver for your common home or garden DIY projects, and excelled in my decking replacements and repairs. I needed to get some recalcitrant and slightly rusty screws moving by hand at first, but with the first centimetre or so clear of the wood, the DCD799P2T handled the rest with ease. I drilled holes for decking screws and chunky coach bolts without any problems, and the same went for driving the screws and bolts in. Chunky 8mm screws driven directly into softwood? No worries. The DCD799P2T is a great example of a no-fuss power tool. As long as you don’t ask it to handle something ridiculous, it just gets on with its task.
Its real strength, however, is masonry. I tested with 6mm and 10mm masonry drill bits, drilling straight into brick and concrete, and while the DCD799P2T didn’t make it effortless, there was less effort than with the majority of drills I’ve tested recently. The hammer action really makes a difference, pounding the bit into the hard stuff, yet there’s not too much of the rough vibration I’ve experienced with some cheaper hammer drills. Again, no fuss.
The DCD799P2T isn’t what you’d call a quiet tool, putting out 75.7dBA with the chuck spinning freely. It’s even noisier once you’re actively drilling or driving. However, that’s not bad by comparison with the Erbauer ECDT18-Li-2, which puts out 81.2dBA,
Should you buy the DeWalt DCD700P2T?
This isn’t an expensive power tool by professional standards, but it’s a big investment for your average home DIYer. If you’ve got a big project on your hands, though, that investment could be worth it. Most combi drills will handle drilling and screwing into softwood and some light masonry tasks, but it’s when you have to drill a good sized hole into a brick wall or concrete lintel that you can find yourself wishing you’d bought something with more beef. The DCD799P2T is beefy, but also compact and easy to handle. It’s a pint-sized powerhouse of a power tool.
