The DIY Diva Handy Mandy review

11 May 2005 0:35 GMT / By Ben Harvard Taylor

You might want to get your other half involved in a spot of DIY over a bank holiday weekend, but does that mean you have to fall for gimmicks and tools that don’t provide the oomph? We put the Diva/Handy Mandy screwdriver drill combo to the test and unfortunately the results were very disappointing.

Don’t get us wrong, we admit that you don’t need the biggest, most powerful over the top drill/screwdriver for every job but these are so under-powered that you have to question whether they can even cope putting together a set of shelves from the flat-pack holy grail - IKEA.

Perhaps if the manufacturer hadn’t spent its time on working out which funky colour to coat them in it might have created a tool that could actually shift stubborn screws or drill into even the softest of woods rather than being only really suitable for very easy jobs.

Coloured in gold and purple respectively they’ll just about handle the most basic jobs. If you’re brave enough to buy one for your girlfriend, you may also want to be wearing protection - they smack of being the tiniest bit sexist.

To complete the look, they also come with a belt holder that allows you to carry round both the tool and it’s accessories (they come with a selection of screwdriver and drill bits), and if the battery lasts we very much doubt it will, you might have a piece of kit that is more than a paperweight after 10 minutes.

Verdict

At £30 you’re going to find it difficult not to buy something that’s fit for its purpose. Our advice - you could get a decent cordless screwdriver for the same sort of money, so don’t bother with these. Even if you were buying them for novelty value, we would still advise against it.

This product was kindly loaned to us by http://www.mayhemonline.co.uk