When it comes to choosing a drill tool you have in essence three options. The first option, the drill press, I'll mention first because I won't be spending much time on it and it's typically not what people are thinking of when they are thinking of buying a drill. A drill press is usually fixed to a workbench and is immovable. Mark the timber and position it under the drill, apply power and ease down the drill head and you have a quick and accurate way of boring into wood. It's brilliant where accuracy is paramount because the drill bit can be aligned perfectly against the cut marks by lowering the head with no power applied. Once the alignment is made apply power and lower the head again for the precision bore.

However, unless you're a professional or serious enthusiast it's probably not what you have in mind when you are talking of drill tools.

The second are third options have to be talked about together. Before we even think about hammer action, clutches, two speed, depth gauges and the like we need to decide if we want the power of a powered, ie corded drill or the flexibility of a cordless drill that is a battered powered drill.

The traditional trade off between the power of a mains powered drill and the flexibility of a cordless drill is diminishing everyday so luckily these days we can have the best of both worlds. Modern batteries have pumped up the power of the cordless drills to the point where for many jobs both professional and for home users they are powerful enough without having to suffer the inconvenience and worse, hazard of running more cables around the work site. Bizarrely for some jobs a powered drill can be too powerful. When using the drill as a screwdriver it is more important to be able to subtly control the application of turning power to the screw tip than to just blaze away rotating the screw before the thread has bitten correctly into the timber. Many home users of drills want to the help with self assembly furniture or for other screwing tasks so a corded can be a liability in these cases unless you are extra careful.

The powered drill is generally best left to drilling holes that need a lot of grunt such as stone working or making dynabolt holes in brick. Even the problems of running out of battery life can be overcome with a second battery and a rapid charger. Batteries don't have to be left on overnight to charge these days.