Cordless Drill or Corded? Brushless Settled It — Except for Concrete
The old answer was: buy corded, because corded is more powerful and cheaper. That is no longer true of the drill most people need. A £99.99 brushless 18V combi out-torques every corded percussion drill we priced and drills the same 13 mm hole in brick. What corded still wins, and wins enormously, is concrete — and the corded tool for that is an SDS hammer, not a percussion drill.
The short answer
Decision one: your one drill should be a brushless 18V cordless combi, not a corded percussion drill. On the day we checked, Screwfix wanted £99.99 for a DEWALT DCD778D2-SFGB with two 2.0Ah batteries, a charger and a case — 65 Nm, 1.6 kg, 13 mm in masonry, 4.9/5 from 425 reviews. The corded percussion drills on the same site ran from £15.00 to £113.99 and topped out at 16 mm in masonry, with the DeWalt corded model weighing 3.1 kg — nearly twice the cordless one — and carrying a one-year guarantee against the cordless drill’s three. The 2021 argument that corded buys you more power for less money does not survive that comparison.
Decision two: the corded drill still worth owning is an SDS hammer, and it is cheap. Concrete is where a combi drill stops being fun. A corded Titan TTB653SDS is £74.99 at Screwfix — 1500 W, 8 joules of impact energy, 4.7/5 from 555 reviews. The cheapest cordless SDS on the same listing is a bare Makita DHR202Z at £99.90 or a bare DEWALT DCH033N-XJ at £99.99, and they deliver 1.9 J and 2.0 J. That is four times the impact energy for £25 less, before you have bought a battery. Joules, not volts, are what break concrete.
So the shape of a sensible UK kit is one cordless combi plus, if you ever touch concrete, one cheap corded SDS. Call it £174.98 at Screwfix prices on 8 September 2026. What you should not buy is the thing the old version of this page pointed at: a mid-price corded percussion drill. It is beaten by the cordless drill on everything a combi is for, and beaten by the £74.99 SDS on everything it is not.
One honest caveat before you read the table. Torque in newton metres is not measured to a common standard between brands, and neither is impact energy between an impact drill and a rotary hammer. Erbauer’s 150 Nm and DeWalt’s 65 Nm are not a like-for-like ranking. We are comparing categories here, not scoring individual tools.
Three corded, three cordless — all six on the seller's own published figures
| Drill | Price | Power / torque | Masonry | Weight | Buyer rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Titan TTB877DRH 600W corded impact, Screwfix own brand | £15.00 (from £19.99, Screwfix) | 600 W · 0–3,000 rpm · 0–48,000 bpm | 13 mm keyless chuck (capacity not published) | 1.85 kg | 4.5/5 from 91 |
| Bosch UniversalImpact 730 corded impact | £64.99 (Screwfix; Bosch’s own site £81.83) | 730 W · 50–3,200 rpm · 48,000 bpm | 14 mm | 2.1 kg | 5/5 from 4 (too few to mean much) |
| DEWALT DWD024K-GB 701W corded percussion, 1 yr guarantee | £87.99 (Screwfix) | 701 W · 0–2,800 rpm | 16 mm | 3.1 kg | 4.7/5 from 48 |
| DEWALT DCD778D2-SFGB 18V XR brushless combi, 2 x 2.0Ah | £99.99 (Screwfix) | 65 Nm · 0–500 / 0–1,750 rpm | 13 mm | 1.6 kg with battery | 4.9/5 from 425 |
| Makita DHP484Z 18V LXT brushless combi, bare tool | £107.99 (Screwfix, no battery) | 54 Nm hard / 30 Nm soft · 0–500 / 0–2,000 rpm | 1.5–13 mm chuck | 1.2 kg bare; 1.6–2.2 kg with a pack | 4.7/5 from 23 |
| Erbauer ERI1107COM 18V EXT brushless combi, 2 x 5.0Ah | £159.99 (Screwfix) | 150 Nm · 0–550 / 0–2,000 rpm | 20 mm | listed 5.25 kg — plainly the boxed kit, not the drill | 4.9/5 from 8 |
Every figure read off the seller’s own product or category page on 8 September 2026. Also checked and not tabled: Makita HP1631K/1 corded, £113.99, 710 W, 16 mm masonry, 2 kg, 4.2/5 from 9 — and the same model in a second listing at the same price scoring 3.4/5 from 39, which is the widest rating disagreement we found on one drill. The DCD778 also comes as a DCD778M2T-SFGB at £139.99 with 2 x 4.0Ah, 4.8/5 from 785 reviews — the biggest sample on any drill here. Erbauer’s guarantee is 1 year; DeWalt’s and Bosch’s are 3 years on registration.
What the 2021 version of this page got wrong
The old post is still up, and we are not going to quietly overwrite it. It ran seven headings — “The Pros and Cons Of Cordless Drills”, “The Positive an Negative Features Of A Powered Drill”, “Measuring The Power Of The Drill” and so on — listed nine brands, and carried no prices, no models and no sources at all. Three of its claims are now wrong.
“Cordless costs more”
It said cordless drills have a higher purchase cost. In our table the cordless combi with two batteries, a charger and a case is £99.99 and the mid-range corded percussion drills are £87.99 and £113.99. On a complete-kit basis the cordless one is now the cheaper purchase, not the dearer one.
“Cordless is lower power — 12V to 18V is typical”
Voltage was never a power rating, and in 2026 it is not even a useful proxy. The 18V DCD778 produces 65 Nm; the Erbauer 18V produces a claimed 150 Nm. What changed is the motor. Makita’s own brushless page claims a brushless tool is “up to 50% more efficient than a comparative model” and that a charged 18V pack “will last almost twice as long as a product running on a standard motor”. That is Makita’s marketing rather than an independent test, but the effect is visible in the prices and specifications above. In 2021 almost nothing at DIY money was brushless; today four of the six drills we tabled are.
“Corded takes larger drill bits”
Half true, and misleading in the direction that costs money. The corded percussion drills top out at 14–16 mm in masonry against the cordless combi’s 13 mm — a difference of three millimetres. The real capacity gap is not corded versus cordless at all. It is percussion versus SDS: the Titan SDS hammer in our costs table is rated to 32 mm in concrete. If bit size is your reason for buying corded, you want a different type of drill, not a different power source.
What the old page got right, and we will repeat: a cordless drill doubles as a screwdriver, and a corded one plugged into a wall never goes flat halfway up a ladder. Those two things have not changed.
Corded percussion drills are the category that died
This is the uncomfortable finding. Screwfix’s corded percussion drill listing on 8 September 2026 ran twelve models from £15.00 to £113.99, and once you get past the £15 Titan there is very little reason to buy any of them.
What you get for the money
The £87.99 DeWalt DWD024K-GB is 701 W, does 16 mm in masonry, weighs 3.1 kg, has a keyed chuck — a chuck key you will lose — and carries a one-year guarantee. The £99.99 cordless DeWalt does 13 mm in masonry, weighs 1.6 kg with the battery in, has a keyless chuck, drives screws with 65 Nm and a clutch, and carries three years on registration. For twelve pounds more you get half the weight and three times the warranty.
The one corded percussion drill worth buying
The £15.00 Titan TTB877DRH, and buy it for the reason nobody advertises: it is a second drill. 600 W, 1.85 kg, 13 mm keyless chuck, 4.5/5 from 91 reviews, and a two-year guarantee — better cover than the £87.99 DeWalt. Leave a masonry bit in it permanently and stop swapping bits on the good drill every time you hang a shelf. At fifteen pounds it is an accessory, not a purchase.
The Bosch UniversalImpact 730 sits awkwardly in the middle: £64.99 at Screwfix, 730 W, 2.1 kg, 14 mm, three-year guarantee on registration. It is a decent tool. It is also £16.84 cheaper at Screwfix than on Bosch’s own DIY site, which lists it at £81.83 — worth knowing before you assume a manufacturer’s page is the price to beat. But it had only four reviews on the day we looked, which is not a sample we would spend £65 on.
When you genuinely need a corded drill: concrete, and only concrete
Bosch’s own DIY explainer draws the line clearly. An impact (percussion) drill is “better suited to drilling holes in softer materials”; a rotary hammer is “ideal for hard materials like concrete and stone”. The mechanisms are different, not just stronger: an impact drill uses “two sets of toothed gear discs [that] interact with each other, creating a horizontal back-and-forth movement”, while a rotary hammer’s “force is much greater due to the stroke-like hammering method”. Bosch also make the practical point: with a rotary hammer “all you have to do is hold it in the right position, apply a little pressure and let the machine do the work”, whereas with an impact drill “the harder the material is, the more force you’ll need”.
Joules is the number, and cordless loses badly
Rotary hammers are rated in joules of impact energy, and Bosch note that “an impact strength of 0.6 J, for example, can penetrate concrete, but would not be sufficient for chiselling or drilling larger holes”. Here is the whole argument for buying corded, in one line of prices from a single retailer on a single day:
- Corded, Titan TTB653SDS — £74.99, 1500 W, 8 J, 5.9 kg, 4.7/5 from 555 reviews.
- Corded, Titan TTB278SDS with a nine-piece bit and chisel kit — £80.00 (from £99.99), 1500 W, 8 J, 6.3 kg, 32 mm in concrete, 4.6/5 from 1,141 reviews.
- Corded, Titan TTB872SDS — £49.97, 750 W, 2.5 J, 3.27 kg, 4.6/5 from 103.
- Cordless, Makita DHR202Z bare — £99.90, 1.9 J, 4.7/5 from 106.
- Cordless, DEWALT DCH033N-XJ bare — £99.99, 2.0 J, 5/5 from 71.
- Cordless, Bosch GBH 18V-21 with one 4.0Ah pack — £99.99, 2.0 J, 4.8/5 from 69.
The cheapest corded SDS on that listing delivers more impact energy than any of the cordless ones for half the price, and the £74.99 model delivers four times as much. Add a battery to a bare cordless SDS and you are past £120 for a fifth of the hammer. If your job is drilling into a concrete lintel, a modern floor slab or engineering brick, this is the one place where the 2021 advice is still right — and it is right much more strongly than the old page realised, because it was comparing the wrong corded tool.
The honest case for a cordless SDS
It is not about power. It is about the twenty-metre extension lead, the loft with no socket, the scaffold, the customer’s garden wall. A cordless SDS is a convenience purchase for someone who already owns the battery platform. If you are buying your first hammer and you own no batteries, the corded one is not a compromise — it is the better tool.
The costs the drill price does not include
The corded drill’s remaining advantage is that the price on the shelf is the whole price. A cordless drill is the start of a spending relationship, and the spare battery is where it shows.
Batteries, and why the platform is the real purchase
A spare 18V 5.0Ah pack — the same 90 watt-hours of energy in every case — ranged from £44.99 (Erbauer EXT) to £69.99 (Makita LXT) at Screwfix on 8 September 2026, with Bosch Professional at £49.99, DEWALT XR at £54.99 and Milwaukee M18 at £59.99. Packs do not cross brands. Buying a cordless drill is choosing a battery family you will be feeding for years, which is a much bigger decision than the drill itself. We go into that in detail on our higher-voltage cordless tools guide.
The corded tax nobody mentions
It is real, but it is small: an extension lead, and the fact that a 3.1 kg drill on the end of a cable is genuinely worse to use one-handed at the top of a ladder than a 1.6 kg one. The old page listed “weather and moisture concerns” and “the cable can interfere with the work”, and both remain true. Neither is worth £100.
Converting an SDS to an ordinary drill
You can, and for £19.99 it is worth knowing about: a Bosch 2607000982 13 mm keyed chuck and SDS Plus adaptor, 4.6/5 from 66 reviews, fits a standard chuck to an SDS hammer. Read the limitation, though — Bosch specify it for rotary mode only. It turns a hammer into a passable ordinary drill; it does not turn one tool into two, and it does not replace the combi. If you were hoping to buy one SDS and skip the cordless drill, this is the accessory that almost does it and does not.
Where the published numbers stop being trustworthy
Four things we hit while checking, all of which should make you slower to trust a spec box.
The same drill, two ratings, same day
The Makita HP1631K appears twice on Screwfix’s corded listing at £113.99. One entry scored 4.2/5 from 9 reviews; the other scored 3.4/5 from 39. Both were live at the same moment. We have printed both and picked neither.
A weight that cannot be the drill
Screwfix list the Erbauer ERI1107COM at 5.25 kg “with battery”. No 18V combi drill weighs 5.25 kg; the comparable DeWalt is 1.6 kg. That is the boxed kit — two 5.0Ah packs, charger and case. We have left the figure in the table as published rather than quietly correcting it, because you will see it on the listing.
Two retailers, two prices, one drill
The DEWALT D25133K-GB corded SDS was £125.48 at Screwfix and £189.99 at Toolstation on the same day — a £64.51 gap on an identical model number. The Makita HR2670 was £119.99 at Screwfix and £129.99 at Toolstation. Check both before you drive anywhere.
Star ratings that are not scores
Toolstation’s listings rendered every product as five stars for us, with a review count attached. We have used Toolstation for prices only on this page, and every rating you see here is from Screwfix or the manufacturer. A five-star badge on every item in a category is not evidence of anything.
What a cordless-first kit actually costs, and what corded costs instead
| What | Figure | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| The one-drill answer | £99.99 | DEWALT DCD778D2-SFGB, 18V XR brushless combi, two 2.0Ah packs, charger and case at Screwfix. 65 Nm, 1.6 kg, 13 mm masonry, 4.9/5 from 425 reviews, 3-year guarantee on registration. |
| Add the concrete tool | £74.99 | Titan TTB653SDS corded SDS Plus at Screwfix: 1500 W, 8 J, 5.9 kg, 4.7/5 from 555. Refurbished £59.99 on the same listing. This is the corded drill we would actually buy. |
| Both together | £174.98 | Our arithmetic, Screwfix prices on 8 September 2026. Covers everything a UK house throws at you except chasing walls and lifting slabs. |
| Spare 18V 5.0Ah battery | £44.99 to £69.99 | Erbauer EXT £44.99 · Bosch Professional GBA £49.99 · DEWALT XR DCB184 £54.99 (4.9/5 from 276) · Milwaukee M18 B5 £59.99 (4.9/5 from 185) · Makita LXT BL1850B £69.99. All 90 Wh — the watt-hour figure is our arithmetic, nominal volts times amp hours, because no UK retailer prints it. |
| A charger on its own | £39.99 | Cheapest new DeWalt charger at Screwfix, the DCB1104 12/18V, 4.7/5 from 7 reviews. Relevant if you buy a bare tool such as the £107.99 Makita DHP484Z, which comes with neither battery nor charger. |
| Drill and driver bits | £24.99 | Erbauer Multi-Material 113-piece set at Screwfix, metal, masonry and wood, 4.9/5 from 84 reviews. A drill with no bits does nothing; budget for this in the first purchase, not the second. |
| SDS bits, separately | £24.99 | Titan SDS Plus 20-piece masonry set, 5–20 mm, 110–450 mm lengths, 4.6/5 from 18. SDS bits do not fit a keyless chuck and ordinary masonry bits do not fit an SDS hammer — the two bit collections are separate purchases. |
| SDS to normal chuck | £19.99 | Bosch 2607000982 13 mm keyed chuck and SDS Plus adaptor, 4.6/5 from 66. Bosch specify it for rotary mode only — it will not let you hammer through the adaptor. |
| Cordless SDS instead | £99.90+ bare | Makita DHR202Z £99.90 (1.9 J, 4.7/5 from 106) or DEWALT DCH033N-XJ £99.99 (2.0 J, 5/5 from 71), both without a battery. Roughly a quarter of the impact energy of the £74.99 corded Titan, before you add a £45–70 pack. |
| The £15 second drill | £15.00 | Titan TTB877DRH corded, 600 W, 1.85 kg, 4.5/5 from 91, 2-year guarantee. Not a main drill. A permanent home for a masonry bit so you stop unloading the good one. |
Before you buy, check
- Is it brushless? This is the single question that separates a 2026 cordless drill from a 2021 one. Four of our six were; the two that were not are the 12V models we left out of the table.
- Does the price include batteries and a charger? “Bare” or “body only” means neither. The £107.99 Makita is dearer than the £99.99 DeWalt and arrives with nothing to power it.
- What does a spare pack cost on that platform? Between £44.99 and £69.99 for the identical 90 Wh. Over three or four tools that difference outgrows the price of the drill.
- Are you actually drilling concrete? If yes, stop shopping for combi drills and buy a corded SDS. If no, the masonry capacity difference between corded and cordless is three millimetres and does not matter.
- How many reviews, not how many stars? Two drills in our table had 4 and 8 reviews. One had 425 and its sibling model had 785. A 5/5 from four buyers tells you nothing.
- How long is the guarantee, and does it need registering? Three years on registration for DeWalt, Bosch and the corded Makita; one year for the Erbauer combi and the £87.99 corded DeWalt; two for the £15 Titan.
- Have you priced it at both Screwfix and Toolstation? We found a £64.51 gap on one identical SDS model number on the same day.
- Have you budgeted for bits? £24.99 for a general set, another £24.99 if you go SDS. They are not interchangeable.
Where this came from
- Shopbam — the 2021 version of this page The original post, still live: seven headings, nine brands, no prices, no models and no sources; the claims we correct here · fetched 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — corded percussion drill listing All twelve corded percussion drills with prices, wattages and ratings, including the Makita HP1631K entries that disagree with each other · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Titan TTB877DRH 600W The £15.00 price, 1.85 kg weight, 13 mm keyless chuck, 0–3,000 rpm, 48,000 bpm, two-year guarantee and 4.5/5 from 91 reviews · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — DEWALT DWD024K-GB 701W The £87.99 price, 3.1 kg weight, 16 mm masonry capacity, keyed chuck, one-year guarantee and 4.7/5 from 48 reviews · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Bosch UniversalImpact 730 The £64.99 price, 2.1 kg weight, 14 mm masonry capacity, three-year registered guarantee and the four-review sample · checked 8 September 2026
- Bosch DIY — UniversalImpact 730 product page Bosch’s own £81.83 listing for the same drill, plus 730 W, 2.1 kg, 14 mm masonry and 48,000 bpm · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Makita HP1631K/1 710W The £113.99 price, 710 W, 2 kg, 16 mm masonry and the 4.2/5 from 9 rating that the category listing contradicts · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — SDS drill listing Corded SDS prices and joule ratings: Titan TTB872SDS £49.97/2.5 J, TTB653SDS £74.99/8 J, Erbauer ERH750 £79.99/3 J, Bosch GBH 2-26 £119.99/2.7 J, DEWALT D25133K-GB £125.48/2.6 J, Makita HR2670 £119.99/3.0 J · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Titan SDS Plus listing Weights and model codes for the Titan SDS range, including the 5.9 kg TTB653SDS at £74.99 with 4.7/5 from 555, and the refurbished unit at £59.99 · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Titan TTB278SDS with accessory kit The £80.00 price, 8 J, 6.3 kg, 32 mm concrete capacity, the nine-piece bit and chisel kit and 4.6/5 from 1,141 reviews · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — cordless SDS listing The cordless SDS prices and joule figures: Makita DHR202Z £99.90/1.9 J, DEWALT DCH033N-XJ £99.99/2.0 J, Bosch GBH 18V-21 £99.99/2.0 J, Titan TTI871SDS £119.99 · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — DEWALT DCD778P2T-SFGB combi The 65 Nm torque, 13 mm masonry / 30 mm wood / 13 mm steel capacities, 1.92 kg with a 5.0Ah pack and the three-year registered guarantee for the DCD778 platform · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — DEWALT DCD778D2-SFGB combi The £99.99 kit price with two 2.0Ah packs, 65 Nm, 1.6 kg and 4.9/5 from 425 reviews — the drill this page recommends · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Erbauer ERI1107COM combi The £159.99 price, claimed 150 Nm, 20 mm masonry, one-year guarantee, 4.9/5 from 8 reviews and the 5.25 kg “with battery” weight that cannot be the drill · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Makita DHP484Z combi The £107.99 bare-tool price, brushless motor, 54 Nm and 4.7/5 from 23 reviews · checked 8 September 2026
- Makita UK — DHP484 specification Makita’s own figures: 54 Nm hard / 30 Nm soft, 0–500 and 0–2,000 min⁻¹, 1.5–13 mm chuck and 1.6–2.2 kg with a battery · checked 8 September 2026
- Makita UK — brushless motors The manufacturer’s claims that brushless is “up to 50% more efficient” and that a charged 18V pack “will last almost twice as long” than with a brushed motor · checked 8 September 2026
- Bosch DIY — hammer drills explained The impact drill versus rotary hammer distinction, the gear-disc and stroke mechanisms, the “let the machine do the work” point and the 0.6 J example · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Bosch 13mm chuck and SDS Plus adaptor The £19.99 price, 4.6/5 from 66 reviews, and Bosch’s specification of rotary mode only · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Titan SDS Plus bit set, 20 pieces The £24.99 price, the 5–20 mm sizes in 110–450 mm lengths and 4.6/5 from 18 reviews · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — Erbauer drill bit sets The £24.99 Multi-Material 113-piece set at 4.9/5 from 84 reviews, used as the bits line in the costs table · checked 8 September 2026
- Screwfix — DeWalt chargers The £39.99 DCB1104 as the cheapest new DeWalt charger, 4.7/5 from 7 reviews · checked 8 September 2026
- Toolstation — corded SDS drills The second-retailer prices: DEWALT D25133K-GB £189.99 against Screwfix’s £125.48, and Makita HR2670 £129.99 against £119.99 · checked 8 September 2026
What we could not check
- Nothing here was tested by us or by anyone independent. Every torque, joule, weight and capacity figure is the seller’s or the manufacturer’s own. No lab has put these six drills through the same test.
- Torque is not measured to a common standard between brands. Erbauer’s 150 Nm and DeWalt’s 65 Nm come from different test regimes we have not seen. Do not read the table as a ranking.
- Impact energy in joules is not comparable between a percussion drill and a rotary hammer either, which is why we quote joules only within the SDS group.
- The Makita HP1631K is rated 4.2/5 from 9 in one Screwfix listing and 3.4/5 from 39 in another, on the same day at the same price. We could not establish which is the live figure and have printed both.
- Erbauer’s 5.25 kg “with battery” weight is almost certainly the boxed kit, but Screwfix do not say so and Erbauer publish no bare-tool weight we could find. The true drill weight is unverified.
- Two of our six drills have samples of 4 and 8 reviews. We have printed the sample sizes so you can discount them; they are not evidence of reliability.
- Toolstation would not give us numeric ratings — every product rendered as five stars — so Toolstation appears here for prices only and no rating on this page comes from them.
- Argos would not render prices or ratings for us at all, so a third high-street price for the Bosch is missing.
- Makita’s brushless efficiency claims are Makita’s. We found no independent test of the “50% more efficient” or “almost twice as long” figures.
- Watt-hour figures in the battery line are our arithmetic — nominal volts times stated amp hours — because no UK retailer publishes them.
- We did not check tool life, vibration or noise for any drill here. Corded SDS hammers in particular carry real hand-arm vibration exposure that no listing quantified for us.
- Every price is from 8 September 2026 and several — the £15.00 Titan, the £64.99 Bosch, the £80.00 Titan SDS — were showing as reduced. They will move.
Prices and specifications change constantly. Every figure here is dated — check the one in front of you before spending.