Originally Posted by
peter gagliardi
Pretty much what Martin said, it is a jobsite saw. Basically like every other jobsite saw. Piece of plastic box, housing an upside down skilsaw, with a metal top and fence mounted above. I have used the Bosch, Makita, Dewalt, Ridgid, and several others. That level of quality is par for the course, across the board. When I was younger, we bought the makitas, because they were readily, and cheaply available, and it was known by my boss that they lasted about a year, then you got another one.
I have that exact Bosch you speak of, minus the special Reaxx safety feature. It is a $300-350.00 saw if I remember, with a $650 add on safety feature.
Any of them are a very miserable substitute for a proper shop saw.
They are all made to rip plywood, framing lumber, and other typical housebuilding jobsite materials, including Boral, Azek, and all the composite decking. Basically turning 1 piece into 2 or more. They don't do it well, and they don't generally do it for long.
It also makes just about no sense to put a good blade on it. There is so much runout on the arbors, that it doesn't justify the expense. The lipstick on a pig situation all over again.
All that said, when I finally broke down and bought my Bosch about 5 years ago, after hemming and hawing about wasting that kind of money on a machine with all those miserable attributes, and poor cut quality, I was thankful at the end of the day and job that I could just pick it up and slide it in the truck by myself. And it got the job done, more or less.
I hate using it, compared to any of my shop saws- Whitney, Greenlee, Martins, etc... but I can't cart any of them around.
It is not, in my mind anyway, intended as a precision instrument. It gets banged and tossed from job to job, and you toss it when it dies