DecisionalReview.info

Overall Rating

Excellent drill at a reasonable price
I’ve owned my drill for a little over a year. I bought it to use with my Kreg jig, which recommends the use of a high-speed drill for making pocket screw holes. I am very pleased with the drill. It is powerful, well made, well balanced, and has an excellent gripping surface. The keyless chuck is also handy and grips bits extremely well. I never realized how much better a high-speed drill (2500 rpm) works than a typical drill-driver for simply drilling holes. When compared to my DeWalt 14.4 volt cordless drill(also an excellent tool in its own right)when drilling holes, there is simply no match. The higher speed provides less slippage of the bit on the surface to be drilled and bores a cleaner hole much more quickly. Also, although I enjoy the benefits of a cordless drill, the corded nature of this drill ensures constant power without any reduction in drilling capability. The only downside is that it is a drill and not a drill-driver. If you want to turn in screws with the same tool this is not the right one for you. But, if you are looking for a true hole-drilling machine, I highly recommend this drill.

Overall Rating

Good medium/light duty drill
I purchased one of these reconditioned to replace my Dewalt DW106 that was used as the “family” drill. I have a 3/8″ Milwaukee 0233-20 Holeshooter that is my main high speed drill that the other family members are not allowed to use because they tend to misplace or lend things. The Hitachi DV10VH is compact, well built, and powerful as is typical of Hitachi power tools with a 5 year waranty. It probably is the best buy right now for a mid line 3/8″ high speed drill. The higher end commercial quality drills are about twice as much or more and the Hitachi is much better that the typical B&D or Skil “consumer” drills.

However there are a couple things about it that I want to mention. First it is noisy in a couple ways. When you let up on the trigger switch it makes a rackety noise before it comes to a stop [I don't know if they are all like that]. I think it may have something to to with the chuck and I can live with that. When on full speed it is high pitched like a dentist’s drill. I don’t think I could use it as a drill I would be using a lot like at least a couple hours a week. My main gripe with the Hitachi D10VH is the trigger switch/speed control. The one I have is not linear at all. It does not take much pressure to put it into full speed which would make it next to useless to drive screws or finely controlled drilling. The trigger switch on my Milwaukee Holeshooter is a dream to use with great control over speed of the drill but again such a drill is at least twice as much.

If you can live with what I describe as the shortcomings of the DV10H [at least mine] you should be very happy with it. The Hitachi D10VH does not seem to have much competition within it’s price range right now. The lower priced Bosch, Makita, and Dewalt drills get medicore reviews on Amazon. I do like my Dewalt DW106 [which I was able to repair] better that the Hitachi DV10VH primarily because of the better speed trigger control and lack of like noises but that is a discontinued model and I have not tried the current models. I also want to mention that any of the 3/8″ high speed drills are primarily good only for drilling smaller holes in wood and metal. You can use them to drill about 1″ holes in wood with a spade bit and up to about 1.5 inches with a hole saw. This is the most that many will ever need to do. If you have the need to drill large holes in wood or use auger bits be sure to use a slower speed drill such as the 850 RPM drills available from the popular manufactures. Also a decent set of drill bits will make all the difference with any drill.