Great tools!
After working alongside our contractor in a recent renovation on the house, and enduring his sniggering diss at my Old School corded Makita electric drill, I decided to follow his lead and step up to the Makita impact driver. I ordered it separately, then realized I could have the driver AND the drill in a set for just a few dollars more. (Sent back the driver; ordered the combo.) If you have never used an impact driver, they are amazing. For running in, say, deck or drywall screws it is a miracle cure. With my regular old drill I would have to seriously push while driving in the screw, hoping to keep the bit from camming out and ruining the phillips head about a 1/4" shy of being driven home. The impact driver makes the same clattering sound as it drives in the screw, but it's doing absolutely no harm to the screw head. You have to see it to believe it--like butta! I love the drill, too. It has a very good clutch: set it to drill, as such, with no slippage; or set a very low slip point to put in hinge screws without stripping out the soft pine doorframe--and any setting in between. The lamp is, in my experience, real close to useless. It came with two bulbs, one of them installed. The first one blew out in about 5 seconds. Second one is okay, but I could not find the same bulbs at Home Depot. I'll keep looking, but if this is some hard to come by specialty bulb, what's the point? I would just as soon have had the kit at a reduced package price, minus the lamp.

the best drill ever
I have owned an other makita drill and two dewalt drills this drill is the best so far. the battery life is way better than older versions and the power is amazing. I would absolutely recommend this pack. best bang for your buck.

Great tools at a great price
Great products at a great price. It would be nice if they had a belt clip, but this is not essential.

Lithium Rocks....
Anyone as confused by the compact vs regular lithium technology in these Makita Drills as I was?

I have used both the compact and the LXT version of the Makita Lithium cordless tool sets. Mostly the impact driver and drill/driver. I am a electrical contractor and am pretty hard on my tools.

First both sets worked great. However, I did find that I spent considerable amount of time fetching new batteries with the compact version of the drills. I found this to be irritating, and prefered to use the LXT lithium drill as it lasted twice as long and had maybe just a little more UMMMPHHH to it.

One of my employees who has long struggled with tendonitis in his arm will use nothing else besides the compact version. It is about a pound lighter and it makes enough difference, of course he gets paid the same whether he changes the battery pack ten times a day or five.

Bottom line, both drills work very well. The compact is so light it makes it worth it for people doing lighter use, difficult position, or constant ladder work. But overall I would say it is better suited for the serious homeowner/weekend-warrior rather than the full time contractor. The regular LXT(non-compact) tools, although just a little heavier, are still much lighter than previous technologies and feel like a bag of feathers in comparison to a Dewault. They also lasted longer on a single charge(twice the storage capacity in the battery cells), which was the key selling point for me and the little extra power (insert Tim the toolman grunt here) was well worth it. Then again, if I am light duty user/homeowner and not using these tools daily, the compact version would certainly fit better into my budget and would still do everything I needed it too.

Drill's great - the Driver is the hidden secret in the combo
I knew I wanted the drill from having played around with a friend's. It's outstanding.

I bought the combo based on a few reviews saying how outstanding the driver is.

I must concur. The driver is outstanding.

What the reviewers didn't say was that it has an automatic transmission that grunts it out to low speed/high torque - and the kicker - switches into a hammer-driver mode at slow speeds to realy torque it out.

It will drive deck screws through 2x4's without breaking a sweat - or spinning your bit - and then back them right out again.

So do get either the 2 or 3 piece combo to get the driver. it'll be your default "power screwdriver" for everything but the gentlest applications.

I have to say I like the flashlight too. Nice, bright, and positionable, I use it more than I figured - having it always in the combo kit bag.