Our pick for the best all-around 18v cordless drill is definitely the Panasonic EY6450GQKW 18-volt NiMH 1/2-inch Cordless Drill/Driver Kit
Research the Panasonic 18-volt 1/2-inch Cordless Drill
The primary reasons we chose this drill are for build quality and battery duration.
This Panasonic 18v has a 3.5 Amp-Hour battery which means it will run longer than most 18v cordless drills.
But the main reason we would choose this drill is durability.
This is the drill we would go with if you want to run it day in and day out, if you want it to last as long as possible (both the battery and the drill itself).
This category is for the best value cordless drill. While sometimes it makes sense to get the best possible drill, other times it makes sense to get the best value.
This is not a cheap drill. It's not a drill that we would recomend for people that only use their drills occaisonally to hang pictures.
This is a serious drill that you can use every day. We don't think it's as good as our recommendation for the best cordless drill, but we do believe it is the better buy for the money.
The best 18v cordless drill for the money is the Makita BDF452HW 18-Volt Compact Lithium-Ion Cordless 1/2-Inch Driver-Drill Kit
Research the Makita 18-Volt Compact Cordless Drill at Amazon
There are several reasons to like this drill. The most obvious reason is cost.
You should be able to pick it up for significantly less ($70 less as I write this) than the Pansonic above.
But that's not the only reason. Since this Makita drill uses a Lithium ion battery it is much lighter, over 2 pounds lighter actually.
The Lithium battery also means it has a much slower self discharge. If you use your drill every day, this won't matter one bit because it takes about a month for a NiMh battery to discharge 50%.
But if you keep your cordless drill on the shelf for a while but want it to perform when you need it, then this is a major plus. Li-ion batteries will only loose a few percentage points in a month on the shelf.
This Makita 18v drill also features and LED light that comes on whenever you're drilling to light up your work.
Also the charger will fully charge the battery in 15 minutes.
It's smaller than the Panasonic best cordless drill recommendation, which may be better or worse depending on how you see things.
While we believe the Panasonic has a slightly better build quality, this Makita drill is good to.
You will have to weight the nice features and price of the Makita against the quality of the Panasonic.