Drill driver or combi drill: which one you actually need

Walk into any tool aisle and you will see two drills from the same brand, same battery, same colour, sixty pounds apart. One says "drill driver", the other says "combi". Nothing on the box explains the difference in a way that helps you choose.

What separates them

A drill driver does two things: it spins, and it drives screws. A combi drill does those two things plus hammer action — a rapid forward pulsing that lets the bit chip into masonry while it turns. That is the entire difference. Same motor class, same chuck, same batteries.

Hammer action matters for one job: drilling into brick, block or concrete. If you are putting up a shelf on a plasterboard wall, hanging a picture, building flat-pack, or working with timber, a drill driver does everything you need and does it lighter.

When the combi earns its money

If you live in a British house with solid walls and you intend to fix anything to them — a TV bracket, a handrail, a garden gate, a radiator — you want hammer action. Trying to drill brick without it is slow, hot, and destroys bits. The extra cost pays for itself the first time.

What a combi will not do is heavy masonry. Anything beyond a few 8mm holes in brick wants an SDS rotary hammer, which uses a different chuck and a different striking mechanism. A combi drill in concrete is doing its best; an SDS is doing the job.

The specs worth reading

Torque, in newton metres. Anything from 50Nm upward drives long screws into softwood without complaint. Headline figures above 100Nm are measured in ways that flatter the tool and rarely reflect real use.

Chuck size. 13mm takes everything a home user will own. 10mm is fine and lighter, but limits large spade bits.

Brushless or brushed. Brushless motors run cooler, last longer and squeeze more work from a charge. On a drill used a few times a year the difference is small; on one used weekly it is the difference between a tool that lasts five years and one that lasts fifteen.

Buy the battery, not the drill

The single decision that costs the most money over time is which battery platform you join. Bare tools — the same drill without battery or charger — are typically half the price of a kit. Once you own two batteries and a charger, every subsequent tool in that range is a bare-tool purchase. Choosing a platform on the strength of one cheap drill, then discovering the brand has no sander or no circular saw you want, is how people end up with three chargers.

What a good price looks like

An 18V brushless combi kit with two 2.0Ah batteries from a major brand sits around £130-£180 at normal retail and drops to £90-£120 in genuine sales. Below £80 for that specification, check whether the batteries are included — the most common trick in tool listings is a kit price against a bare-tool product.