LTT screwdriver review: YouTuber beats Snap-On?

the ltt screwdriver it's finally here i guess it passes the drop test linus has been hyping this thing up for years and he makes some bold claims there are loads of perfectly good screwdrivers but this one this one is the best we set out to build the best driver for building computers and in doing so ended up building something that's amazing for just about any task but is it worth 80 bucks to get it shipped to the us or closer to 100 in europe is it any better than this wearer that's half the price is it better than the snap-on minus used to use is it better than this video's sponsor i'm just kidding this video doesn't have a sponsor like project farm i bought all these screwdrivers with my cold hard cash thanks to my channel supporters on patreon and github but today i'm going to put all of them including the cheapest ratcheting screwdriver i could find through my own torture tests now full disclosure i'm not a ratchet guy i've had ratcheting drivers in the past but i've always migrated back to my favorite these flippy bit guys i mean let's look around my house stanley stanley klein stanley philo xlite ifixit harbor freight well maybe i do need to upgrade some of these drivers but can ltt screwdriver convert me to team ratchet heck if not ltt can any of these drivers do it i mean i bought the most expensive ratchet driver in the world this 150 dollar pb swiss and it is pretty nice so let's get started by comparing the specs i'll start with the pb swiss i bought it for 150 bucks shipped though it's cheaper if you live in europe it came in this red hard case with foam to hold the driver and two sets of bits it has a soft handle for easy high torque grip and a straight 100 millimeter blade for getting into tight spaces it has a lifetime warranty and it comes with 20 bits and two separate bit holder trays next up is the snap-on ssd mr4b like the orange one linus used for years i bought this one for 95 bucks shipped direct from snap-on and it's actually a different model than the one project farm tested it has bit storage in the handle under this o-ring sealed cap and it has a large ratchet selector and knurling on the shaft to increase grip the driver comes with a limited lifetime warranty and five standard bits it came in an unassuming box and the bits were shipped loose in the handle then there's the subject of this video ltt screwdriver if you want the full rundown on its internal construction check out ltt's video linked in the description this thing cost me 81 bucks shipped it has a plastic grip like the snap-on but with a tri-lobe design instead of four sides it has knurling on the shaft just like the snap-on and an integrated 12-bit organizer size to fit ltt's custom short shank hex bits the driver comes with 12 bits and was shipped in this box with the bits stored in a cardboard sleeve in the next price category there's the weara craft form compact 27 which was 50 bucks shipped from amazon it's got a hex blade shaft so you can fit a wrench over it for extra torque an easy grip ratchet selector and it holds six regular size bits organized under the handle the craft form grip is rubberized for comfort and extra torque and it comes with a limited lifetime warranty it came with six bits pre-installed in the handle and the box proclaimed i was now a tool rebel thanks suera then there's the williams wrs1 which is basically a cost down version of the snap-on it has a trilo blue plastic handle no knurling on the shaft and it swapped a t15 torx bit for one of the phillips bits and the snap-on driver it has a limited warranty and was shipped bare with no extra packaging getting down to the bottom price bracket this is a doyle 11-1 ratcheting driver from harbor freight i bought it for exactly 16.37 in store a few miles for my house it has a thick rubber handle for extra grip and a thin plastic ratchet selector it comes with eight bits and a very thick reversible blade and was sold in this frustrating clamshell plastic packaging it has a 100 lifetime guarantee i don't know what that means but usually when one of my harbor freight tools breaks i either toss it and buy another or i'll go to the store and they usually just swap it out then there's this amazon basics 12 in one driver it costs 15 bucks with next day shipping and it comes in an unassuming box it has 12 full-size bits hidden in the springy pop-up bit holder and has knurling on the shaft the handle has rubber over-molding for extra grip and it has a ratchet selector similar to the weara amazonbasics has a 1-year standard warranty and the cheapest ratcheting screwdriver i could find is this 11 kit from umartesin it comes with a zipper pouch inside this bright orange box and has a rubber over molded two-sided grip and an extendable and removable hex blade it comes with 16 common bits and two plastic bit holders which are loosely held in the zipper pouch with elastic no word on a warranty since amazon just tells you to contact the seller about it the box tells me it's the best quality so who am i to judge i guess i'll just have to trust them finally i also have an autographed gamers nexus teardown toolkit which includes 10 separate screwdrivers shipped inside the soft tool bag the drivers have a 7 year limited warranty and are not ratcheting i'm including these drivers for two reasons first because gn is the only other tech youtube channel with a screwdriver built specifically for the it and general use market and second because i wanted to show them some support since i enjoy their thorough reviews of pc parts when making my purchasing decisions and before we get too deep into this review i think that's an important point to make linus media group is first and foremost a content creator company not a tool manufacturer i don't think they'll be showing up at construction trade shows with the ltt screwdriver anytime soon so part of the reason some people are interested in a driver like this is to show some support for a content creator or channel they love to watch and there's nothing wrong with that but my goal today is to see for 70 bucks plus shipping can this screwdriver play with the big boys i mean snap-on isn't known for being an economical value brand either but they do make good tools and back them up with a great warranty and fast service just like pb swiss hilti and other commercial brands the big question i have is whether ltt's driver is actually better than the mid-range ones like the weara or the williams it's a pretty big bar to clear but for some people that may make it worth the price of admission the box looks nice with its embossed design though it wouldn't work on a retail shelf i mean even in perfect lighting it can be hard to see what the box is for the back has a blurb about the screwdriver but otherwise it's just a black box opening it up there's a small piece of cardstock to hold things in place and then you get right to it the screwdriver is on the right and there's a little cardboard box of bits next to it i don't hold on to much packaging so it's nice that everything is cardboard and recyclable all the screwdrivers with internal bit storage come pre-loaded except for this one having to put them all in myself is a little annoying especially for such a premium price the bits came out a little bit oily too so i had to wipe them off it's a one-time thing but it would be nice if it was ready to go straight out of the box that said the bit holder is satisfying more on bits later but i did want to mention something about this little separator thingy right here in the middle you can rotate it one way to fit full height bits and the other to separate half height bits but it's a little bit loose it doesn't make a huge difference to me but i was hoping that it would stay in place a little bit better initial impressions holding the driver it's a little on the heavy side all loaded up but not too bad it's balanced pretty well it's easy enough to get the bit holder to pop out especially after using it for a few days the fit and finish is great and the shaft and ratchet feel very nice both ways there's a little slop when it's locked and i'll get to that later but otherwise this driver has been nice to hold and use around the house but how does it hold up against the rest of these drivers the first thing i'm going to test is magnet strength especially in it it's nice to have a good strong magnet tip because you're often putting in tiny screws in weird places where you can't get another finger in to hold that screw so i have this analog gauss meter actually i'm borrowing it for my dad who i make videos with over on gearing engineering go subscribe to that channel if you're not already but this meter gives a reading of magnetic field strength and my dad used to use it to check analog reel to reel playheads back before radio went digital i'm going to put the tip of each screwdriver's included phillips number two bit against the probe to see which one's strongest linus made a big deal about shortening the bits to get more magnetic force so the other main benefit is that by having these shorty bits we're putting less of our ferrous material in between our maximal sized uh internal magnet here and whatever it is that you're trying to hold on the bit but too much magnetism and it can get frustrating when the screwdriver keeps sticking to the sides of a case in my limited testing it wasn't annoying with any of these drivers but i can at least get some hard numbers for how strong the magnet is so let's see how they stack up the ltt driver shows about 2.5 gauss which is on par with what i measured on the williams and the snap-on the pb swiss pulls ahead with three gauss but the wherea driver took the overall lead coming in at 3.5 i should mention that driver to driver there's a little variation in the magnet strength but generally these more expensive drivers have way stronger magnets the amazon basics driver just has one gauss and the gamer's nexus driver has 1.7 the rest of these the doyle the madison and my favorite stanley driver don't have any magnet at all a magnet is useful in many cases but you can also magnetize and demagnetize most bits if you just need a light amount of force not everyone needs this much force next i'll look at the blade or shaft of the driver especially for pc building the shaft design can make or break a screwdriver one of the main reasons most people stick with normal non-ratcheting drivers especially without interchangeable bits is because of clearance issues having a standard hex bit holder means you have a minimum diameter on the end of the shaft and that can get in the way doing things like mounting a cpu cooler so the thinner the shaft the better right well not always you also need a strong shaft especially for more general tasks like screwing into wood and the blade should also be balanced with the rest of the driver and not wobble much or ideally at all and the blades on these things are all over the board obviously the gamers nexus tear down drivers are the best because there's absolutely no play and they're by far the thinnest just five millimeters thick and that's why a lot of people prefer standard screwdrivers but they're not ratcheting so i'm just using this as a point of reference here's a chart showing the shaft dimensions for all the drivers the doyle is absolutely massive and would be terrible for building pcs and it looks like linus did a pretty good job making the ltt driver the slimmest only 9.43 millimeters on the thickest point on the end of the shaft in terms of wobble the worst by far is also the cheapest no surprise i mean this shaft wobbles like crazy plus it's thin enough especially in these little detents that i'd worry about shearing it right off if you wrench it too hard but looking at the rest of the drivers most of them are decent the knurling on the ltt driver is pretty aggressive compared to the snap-on but both are an improvement over the smooth shafts especially when you're spinning the ratchet by hand for lighter work speaking of the ratchet that's probably the hardest thing to get right and these drivers are all over the board the pb swiss has a rock solid ratchet and it better it cost more than a raspberry pi even with current scalping prices and when you lock it i don't know how they did it but the thing feels like a regular screwdriver the amazon basics and the martesen drivers have a ton of play like you shouldn't be able to wiggle the thing this much before it starts ratcheting the ltt driver feels great with a very small amount of force required to get the ratchet to engage the ratchet selector is also important the big selectors on the ltt driver the pb swiss and the weara are easy to use one-handed but some like the snap-on need more force and then there's the doyle i'm not sure who designed it but i don't think it was even made for human hands it's super hard to get to this ratchet selector switch but there are also times when you just want to lock the driver and use it as a normal non-ratcheting screwdriver except that's kind of the achilles heel for some of these like the weira for all the things that are good about it look at how much play there is wiggling it back and forth when it's locked the idea would be for the blade not to have any wiggle at all it should just feel like a screwdriver and like i said the pb swiss is the gold standard here to put some numbers behind my testing i 3d printed this little slot measuring tool it slots in the bit holder and i can lock the driver and see how much play there is obviously the gamer's nexus driver is the best since it's just a normal screwdriver but the pb swiss does amazing with only one degree of slop most of the drivers are in the middle of the pack with ltt's driver right in the middle with four degrees of slop the weara and the umarticen are at the bottom of the list they both feel pretty bad locked there's just way too much slop with both coming in at eight degrees so anyway i'll go full asmr so you can compare the ratchet sounds go ahead and play this part on loop if you're into that kind of thing [Music] if it's any help my kids and my wife all agreed that the williams had the most satisfying ratchet sound and i have to agree i'd rank ltt's driver in the middle since it's a bit louder but not obnoxious like the doyle and the madison i'll just touch on bits but over long periods of time bits are just consumables to me and i don't really have any brand loyalty the higher end drivers do come with more precise bits but the actual assortments you get are all over the board the snap-on just includes some common us bits like flathead and phillips some give you more torques and hex bits others come with a huge variety all these drivers can take a standard quarter inch bit but the ltt driver comes with these shorter bits it can take longer bits but if you use them you can only hold 6 not the 12 it comes with larger bits don't seem to be an issue on the cheap amazon basics driver but it's also one of the beefier drivers tipping the scales at 218 grams you can buy extra sets from ltt store if you want to stick with their compact 20 millimeter bits but for me i have so many bit drivers i'll just switch to normal size bits once my ltt bits start breaking i've lived with six bits for a long time so even though ltz thinks you need more we felt 12 was a necessity for techwork it's not a deal breaker to have fewer bits on hand it is nice that the ltt driver comes with a phillips number zero for all my raspberry pi needs it's a little oversized for it but it works in a pinch bit storage is all over the place the pb swiss doesn't have any storage in it at all though they do have a different model the 6510 that does but for the one i have here the bits are all separate the ltt and amazon basics drivers store up to 12 bits right in their handle while most of the rest store six bits the doyle driver from harbor freight is the only ratcheting driver with a flippy shaft style bit holder and that adds substantially to its weight the thing is a monster at almost 300 grams i kinda like flippy bits on my stanley driver but i don't like how thick and bulky it makes the doil i'll run through each driver and swap a number two phillips for the number one to show you a bit change uh i think my main takeaway is that if you want fast bit changes the flippy shaft style is by far the best but failing that ltt's bit holder is helpful since it spins making finding the right bit a little simpler amazon's driver is close but you can't spin just the bit holder so it's more annoying trying to get the right bit there are more subjective aspects of these drivers that i have to talk about too like the grip the looks and heck the flip test for how well they're balanced but some of these aspects vary in importance depending on your own use in your own hands so take what i say with a grain of salt i decided years ago to buy a bunch of these stanley drivers and they have a trilobe design with a mostly smooth finish and a bit of heft but i like them because they're durable they're cheap and generally they're well balanced i mean i can flip this thing for days so i might be swayed a little towards other drivers with similar designs but i can say that the doyle driver is by far and away my least favorite it's too thick for me it's circular so it can roll around on a desk too easy and i'm pretty sure that ergonomics was an afterthought but all these screwdrivers make trade-offs like look at the grips it doesn't matter the price some are more grippy rubber for extra grip and more torque others are more slippery plastic like ltt's driver there's no wrong design only designs that are better or worse for a particular use case a lot of engineers and mechanics might use pb swiss tools and they might even have foam in all their jars to hold their tools just so so a grippy tool is nice for them they aren't going to throw the driver in their pocket all day linus keeps this thing on him all day so having something he can slide in and out of his jeans or his bag is ideal and yeah it passes that test with flying colors some of the grippy drivers aren't great if you like throwing them in your jeans pocket but getting back to that grip does it make a big difference for some types of use how easy to use these drivers for it stuff like pck screws or rack mount screws i'll install this mini itx motherboard in this case with each driver and see how the feel is for fine machine threads so the pb swiss and the magnet bit is nice for holding that screw this one's a bit tougher this one's easier just to spin like this [Music] nope i forgot this one doesn't have a magnet bit that's that's rough getting the screw out is fun when you don't have magnet too yeah this screwdriver is not even fun to use it works and that's about all i can say about it so i had a few that i hated the doyle was terrible it was not fun to use at all not ratcheting or even screwdriving it was too thick to be used this one just feels so bad it was not fun at all to try screwing and unscrewing things with it and it doesn't have a magnet or anything i'm used to this one so you know i give it a pass and the amazon one was okay but the ratchet is not super easy to use and requires a little too much force the three that i like the most are the williams snap-on and ltt for the ratchet especially the williams even without the knurling it's just so smooth i i'm starting to like this driver more than most of the rest i think at this point in terms of the value at least the ltt has the good knurling here but it's actually a little bit shorter shaft so in this case i couldn't get my fingers down into the knurling as much on the other end of the spectrum i'll test screwing into this two by three this requires a lot more torque and yes before you comment it would be a lot faster to just go grab my impact driver and shoot these things in but every once in a while you just need to screw in one screw and you're too lazy to go downstairs to the workshop or at least i am so i recorded tapping in and unscrewing each of these screws in a 2x4 i don't really like the four the four-way design on here my hand doesn't fit anywhere on the grip as well when i'm holding it this way it's okay but when i try to get some more torque on it it's not as nice the screwdriver is definitely meant to be held like this and not like this i definitely feel a little bit more slipping with this smooth plastic grip i do like the the top on here doesn't move so i can just hold it like this or like this yeah this one i'm definitely feeling a little bit more not just because i'm weak it's uh it's it's more slippery getting it out is definitely a little bit faster feeling though this one there's there's uh there's nowhere to push down on it when you need that extra torque it kind of hurts there's there's uh it kind of slices in your hand up here this one is a lot nicer to grip but it's it's also for my hand that the bump out is a little weird but it works pretty well well it's cammed out a little bit grip is good i i'm not a big fan of the ratchet the ratchet feels good on this one compared to that where the grip on here is nice too i don't know something's different about it i wonder if it's because it's a little flatter i feel like i can get a little bit more grip than the ltt driver it's still not as nice as the ones with the rubber grip for this but this this grip is definitely a little easier to use than the ltt driver this one doesn't even engage i have to use my hand to help it the grip is okay but everything else about this driver there's a there's a lot of a lot of play here to get that ratchet to go i think it's designed to a price and that's about it what the ratchet locked itself again this one's not so bad but there's a bit of slop in the ratcheting the grip is nice though there's a slipped ratchet there even the bad ratchets definitely help out a little bit in this case it's just a lot more work repositioning everything to get that torque this one's definitely more of a workout and so i'm worried it's going to break when i try doing this this wobble is all over the place here and then cast my effort is going into the wobbliness something black just fell out of the driver too in my hand the handle is too narrow this one is not better than this one i have to say it oh yeah this one i don't recommend at all this one is not fun for high torque you need a bigger bigger handle to give it more uh more grip like this one it's not fun to use but this one has a much larger grip but it makes this easier this is you don't get much surface area to grip on it definitely better for pc building than anything that requires torque finally if you're spending more than 50 bucks on a hand tool especially if you're not using it for a living you want to know if it'll last every design decision has a trade-off and there's no perfect material so how do all these drivers hold up in a variety of conditions screwdrivers are only meant to drive screws not to other things i mean heck snap-on even has a huge text on the side warning not a pry bar chisel or punch but let's be honest when you're up in your attic itching and sweating and all you need to do is pop a cover off a metal box if the only tool you have is a screwdriver what are you going to do all those osha rolls go out the window you're going to mash that hammer into that cover and finish the job i even have a few witness marks on the end of my old stanley and i can imagine you might be tempted to bash on some of these guys too so first of all how do they hold up under normal wear and tear you're going to probably throw these in a drawer or a tool bag a lot and they're going to hit other metal tools i grabbed this super cheap harbor freight flat head and scratched over all these drivers this definitely wears and i hate doing this to 150 tool but that's life and the plastic here comes up a little bit there's scratches but no real damage to the shaft all right snap on can definitely make a make an impact there it's getting a little bit scratched up not too bad there's like almost nothing but you can't barely make out the scratches old tt driver that's definitely coming off not too bad on that part on the shaft same thing it's barely noticeable but definitely scratching a tiny bit so there's two different materials here here's the plastic and that comes off pretty easy the rubber similar to the pb swiss you know it wears but it's okay doesn't feel bad and it scratches about like the ltt driver does i don't know what kind of grade of rubber this is but it's not too bad actually this rubber isn't really peeling off at all but you can tell it's scratched but it's not coming off that plastic actually holds up better than most of the other plastics i don't know what amazon did but you can't see any scratches at all in any of the metal parts oh yeah that's i mean this is old rubber too so it's coming right up but not much on the plastic there and their finish is nice too not scratching off at all that that rubber is not old and it's it's flaking off pretty well plastic their plastic scratches up pretty easy you can see the scratches but it's it feels fine the plastic is a little bit more scratch prone the shaft is not showing any marks at all so it seems like the ones with the rubber grips you can't even really feel where where i scratched i mean you can if you're looking for it but it's not noticeable and it's surprising the shafts on some of the cheaper ones are actually holding up a little bit better after scratches than the more expensive ones but the plastic ones definitely you can feel where i scratched it so you know over time over time they're all probably going to scratch a little more evenly so it wouldn't be in one spot like these but that is something to keep in mind if you're planning on throwing these in a tool bag i was just going to use all these screwdrivers as a chisel with a hammer to see how they hold up but redshirt jeff had a better idea so let's see how the drivers hold up in the bowling ball chisel test [Music] still working though works just as well as it did yeah oh the mechanism we might have our first victim here yeah the shaft won't come out uh-oh there we go no ratcheting on this one so we actually did get this out finally and there's a few scratches and dents here that weren't there before so you know like i said this i think of all the screwdrivers this one i would not recommend even though it's the cheapest it's not worth it at all but for more destructive testing go check out project farm he did some destructive bit and torque tests and the ltt driver actually performed really well in his testing getting it coveted very impressive during the ratchet weight test some people just want to buy one quality tool instead of a bunch of cheap ones hashtag buy it for life other people use a tool like one of these premium drivers for hours a day and they're fine paying for it companies like snap-on have another ace up their sleeve though and that's their support most cities have reps and replacement parts on hand available the same day if you're a mechanic and your job depends on your tools working being able to get a same-day replacement is a huge benefit i don't think ltt's creator warehouse is going to give that level of service but at least they have a written warranty now trust me bro doesn't move the needle for high-end tools but for most of you you just want a screwdriver to toss in your drawer and use a couple times a month unless you want to support ltt this driver probably isn't the right one for you it's a halo tool something you can tell linus and his team poured their hearts into and it has a price to match so in the end do i recommend the ltt screwdriver yes and no i'm going to give you the cop-out answer you're the only one that can choose the right driver for you honestly i'm thinking the williams is probably the best overall value but the ltt and the pb swiss are great options if you want a premium product the ltt screwdriver feels better for lighter work like pc building or general household use but the pb swiss feels nicer in a workshop the cheapest drivers work in a pinch but i wouldn't recommend any of them before i go i'm going to give away one of these screwdrivers over on twitter go follow me at gearlinguy and i'll tweet out an entry form later today until next time i'm jeff gearling

Channel: Jeff Geerling

Views: 913,422

Keywords: ltt, linus tech tips, screwdriver, shortcircuit, linus, sebastian, youtube, youtuber, tools, tool, truck, snap-on, fap-on, harbor freight, fraught, pb swiss, switzerland, premium, best, ratchet, ratcheting, mechanism, review, test, break, durability, wera, williams, wrs-1, amazon basics, doyle, amartisan, cheap, hand, workshop, bowling ball, chisel, red shirt jeff, stanley, felo, xcelite, gamers nexus, gn, ltt store, merch, merchandise, worth, value, quality

Id: l40dncKq38s

Length: 29min 57sec (1797 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 07 2022