Yesterday I talked about a new Dewalt compact cordless brushless drill kit, DCD777C2, which looks like it could be this year’s new heavily promoted holiday cordless drill model. That’s not a bad thing. The new model is more compact than the current non-brushless model (DCD771), and should deliver longer runtime too.
In the comments to that post, Cr8ondt mentioned seeing a new Porter Cable 20V Max brushless drill, PCC608, in addition to their PCCK607LB high performance model that recently hit the market for $149. You’ll see Ben posting about the PCCK607 sometime soon.
So what’s special about the new Porter Cable PCC608? It’s available in a kit for just $99.
I don’t think I have ever seen a brushless drill/driver kit approach this price point, which makes this drill somewhat remarkable.
- 270 MWO (max watts out, a SBD way of measuring and comparing torque and power)
- 1600 Max RPM
- 7.4″ length
A different product page, for the PCCK618L2 combo kit, which also comes with a brushless impact driver, says that the PCC608 (it doesn’t explicitly mention this model, but shows and describes it), says that the speeds are 0-400 and 0-1600 RPM, and max torque is 300 MWO.
I’ll try to clear up the specs, but 270 MWO or 300 MWO – why can’t Porter Cable just use UWO like Dewalt? – are close enough to draw the same conclusions.
This is a light duty brushless drill designed with a $99 price point in mind, and I imagine retail stores will sell pallets of them.
Compared to the PCC601, their previous budget model, this brushless drill offers:
- More compact size (7.4″, 10% shorter)
- Lighter (3 lbs, 14% lighter
It’s bundled with a PCC699L charger and 2x PCC681L Porter Cable 20V Max 1.3Ah compact battery packs. The PCC699L charger is the same one included in Porter Cable’s pricier kit. I can’t find any info online, but I hope it’s a fast charger, not one of those “leave your battery charging overnight” chargers.
I’m pretty excited about this, but wonder what compromises there might be. I think that, as with the new Dewalt DCD777 budget-friendly brushless drill, power and speed are the bigger tradeoffs. But, even a smaller brushless motor should mean runtime benefits.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the Porter Cable PCC608 once the holiday season rolls around. I’m thinking it’ll be an online special, as it is right now at Amazon, and maybe it’ll be an in-store doorbuster at Lowes.
Porter Cable has also added a new budget-minded brushless impact driver to their 20V Max lineup, in addition to their also-new premium model. Both the budget drill and impact will be available in a combo kit, PCCK618L2.
Price: $99
Buy Now(via Amazon)
See Also(Combo Kit)
Compare(Budget Brushed Version)
Right now you could also buy the budget brushed drill in a 2-battery kit for under $90, and the 1-battery premium brushed drill deal is still ongoing.
It seems like there are a few too many Porter Cable drill deal SKUs out there right now. I would expect for some to be discontinued once supplies dry up, or perhaps they’ll be kept live in order to offer a range of options at the $70 to $130 price point.