JCB Cordless Screwdriver Set review

24 November 2004 7:54 GMT / By Ben Harvard Taylor

In the great scheme of DIY purchases the cordless screwdriver often comes straight after the power drill. It makes many of those common DIY tasks around the house much more speedy and a lot less effort. With a huge range of devices on the market it's always difficult to decide quite which one is most suited to your needs.

In this review we put JCB's cordless screwdriver kit through its paces. On first impressions the kit promises much. As we opened the specially designed carry case we were amazed at the sheer range of attachments that were available to us. In addition to the usual cross-head and flat-head bits, we were also presented with socket bits, Allen-keys and many more we've yet to find a use for. In all there are 80 individual attachments for the screwdriver.

The screwdriver comes with an internal battery, which means giving it a good charge before its first use. Whilst this isn't normally a problem it does mean that should the power run out half way through a job you would need to wait for it to fully recharge. This should only take 3 hours, but if you're doing a lot of screwing you may want to think about using a model with a removable battery.

The screwdriver feels a little flimsy and the balance of it doesn't quite feel right in your hand, but after much use we're still impressed with its durability. When folded into the gun shape (useful for getting into awkward places) the forward and reverse button is a little difficult to reach and we found applying the necessary pressure onto the screw when in this configuration tricky.

As the screwdriver only has one speed it's a little over eager to complete some operations. It wasn't always ideal for certain jobs because of this. When using it on delicate materials we found we had to be very careful not to over-tighten the screw.

It's also a little underpowered. For some of the tougher jobs the screwdriver struggled to turn and clearly demonstrated it was straining, as the torch-light went out as it worked. The ability to adjust the torque would be useful, which isn't available on this model.

Verdict

There are loads of cordless screwdrivers on the market and this doesn't do a bad job, but if you're planning some major DIY this isn't necessarily the choice for you.

The attachments mean you'll never be wanting for the right bit, but we don't think you'll end up using more than 10% of them. At £29.99 it's certainly not expensive for what it is and overall it performed well enough but just don't expect too much.

This product was kindly loaned to us by www.jcbshop.com