Why this drill, and not a cheaper one?
I should put my bias on the table first: I’ve been on Makita since before Joel and I started building the house, so I’m hardly going to be objective about it. Take it with that grain of salt — and then notice that Joel, who’d sooner chew through one of his own Ryobi batteries than agree with me, doesn’t argue the point either.
Here’s the case. Every battery platform has one tool that’s worth buying into the whole system for, and on Makita’s 18V LXT range, this is it. It’s been the drill on building sites for the better part of a decade. That matters to us at home for a simple reason: a tool built to survive eight hours a day on a site will barely notice the few hours a month a home project gives it. It sits in the middle of Makita’s line-up — a step up from the entry DHP485, a step below the heavier DHP486 — and the middle is exactly where most of us should be shopping.
One bit of admin before you get carried away, because it’s easy to skim past and annoying to lose: Makita’s warranty runs five years if you register the tool at MyMakita within 30 days of buying it, three if you don’t — and only on genuine Australian stock from an authorised dealer, so a grey-import “plain packaging” listing may carry no Makita cover at all. Do it the evening it lands on the bench. I set a phone reminder; Joel insists he doesn’t need one, and has lost cover on a tool that way, which I mention only because it’s true.
How much power does it have?
The number on the box is 54Nm of torque. Torque is twisting force. It’s the number that decides whether a long screw winds smoothly down into hardwood, or the drill bogs down halfway and leaves the screw sticking up, half-driven and going nowhere. 54Nm is a big helping of it. You can drive a 100mm screw into hardwood without stopping to drill a pilot hole first, and the first time the bit binds and the whole drill tries to twist itself out of your grip, you’ll hold it with both hands for the rest of the day. That jolt is the torque finding nowhere left to go, and it’s the whole reason you keep a firm second hand on the drill.
The thing I reach for more than the raw grunt, though, is the clutch — the numbered collar behind the chuck that tells the drill to quit turning once a screw’s snug. It’s got 21 settings, and that’s the difference between a cabinet hinge sitting flush and a stripped screw head you’re now drilling back out. Power sells the drill on the shelf; it’s the control you notice every Saturday.
Hammer mode — where the drill adds thousands of tiny forward jabs a minute to help the bit bite into masonry — will sink a 6mm wall plug into double brick without much complaint. I wouldn’t drill into brick all day with it, mind; that’s a rotary hammer’s job. But for the odd shelf bracket or a TV mount, it’s more than enough.
What’s it like to use?
This is the half of the drill that never makes it onto the spec sheet, and it’s a fair chunk of why I’ve stayed put. At 1.2kg before the battery goes on, it’s light enough to hold up over your head without your arm packing it in, and the 182mm head is short enough to fit between studs and into the back of a kitchen cabinet where a longer drill jams up against the side. The grip is rubberised in exactly the spots your hand wraps around — which sounds like sales-talk right up until you spend an afternoon driving screws and your palm doesn’t ache at the end of it.
What does buying it commit you to?
More than a drill — and this is the part worth thinking about most. Buying the DHP484 is buying into LXT — somewhere north of 250 tools that all run off the same battery — so every Makita tool you buy after this one is cheaper than its price tag, because you already own the dear part. That’s the argument for paying the Makita premium over the Ryobi or Ozito version of the same drill, and it’s also a decision you’d much rather make once. I’ve put the full sums — what the batteries cost, who’s got the best warranty, where each brand earns its keep — in our battery platform comparison, and I’d read it before you spend a cent.
Should you buy it?
Buy it if you can picture yourself owning four or five cordless tools over the next few years, because that’s the point where the platform maths quietly starts paying you back. If your DIY stops at hanging pictures and the occasional flat-pack, you don’t need this drill and I’m not going to pretend you do — the Ozito PXC end of the aisle will do that work for a fraction of the money, and I mean that as a real steer, not a polite one.
Specifications
- Voltage
- 18V (LXT platform)
- Max torque
- 54Nm (hard) / 30Nm (soft)
- Chuck
- 13mm all-metal, keyless
- Speed
- 0–500 / 0–2,000 rpm
- Impact rate
- 0–30,000 bpm (hammer blows per minute)
- Weight
- 1.2kg (tool only, no battery)
- Length
- 182mm
- Drilling capacity
- 38mm wood / 13mm steel & masonry
- Warranty
- 5 years (registered)
