In 2018 the pitch was voltage. In 2021 it was cell chemistry. By 2024 every major brand was claiming corded performance from an 18V pack, and a fair number of tradespeople had quietly concluded the whole thing was marketing.
They were partly right. Peak power figures have inflated far faster than anything you can use on site, largely because they are measured in bursts no real cut sustains. But underneath the noise, one thing genuinely changed: pack voltage sag under sustained load.
That is the number that decides whether a 65 mm hole saw stalls halfway through a stud. It is also the number almost nobody publishes, which is why we started measuring it ourselves.
Across four platforms and eighteen months of testing, the spread is wider than the marketing suggests — and it does not correlate neatly with price. Two mid-tier platforms hold voltage better under a 40 A draw than one flagship that costs 30% more.
The practical conclusion for anyone buying now: ignore peak torque, ignore voltage badges, and ask what the pack does at minute four of a hard cut. That single question separates the platforms more reliably than any spec sheet.
