looking for electric screwdriver drill torque values

[lunarhighway]

i've just started remodeling my house so i'm looking at heaps of work. to lighten the load after two days of useing a good old manual screwdriver to put together a wooden frame for a wall. i'm thinking of either buying a dedicated electric screwdriver of a drill that has that capacity.

my main question is what's a good torque value... some resonably prised ones where between 8 and 12 nm of torque but i imagine these where more for computer work etc... i've seen a nice discount on a 25nm torque but i'm not sure of it's up to the job.
in the real professional brands they seem to start from around 40 nm and go way up from there problem is their prisetag also soars

i don't intend to use if much for real heavy duty, i don't mind predrilling the holes, and it's mosely for interior wall construction etc...
i think i'll mostely be looking at metabo as a brand for the simple reason most of my dads drills are from that brand, and after more than 20 years of use at home they're still going strong... so with that quality i'm not going to be to picky about the price, but there's no point in getting something that's complete overkill...
so basically can someone give me an average torque range i should look at
and perhaps a clue about what would be the batteries that have the longest lifespan (in total not between charges)... as i'm worried the drill will outlive the lifespan of the battery and by that time there might not be any replacement battery packs available anymore for this type of drill
tanks

[Ryland]

I would not worry very much about batteries not being avalible unless i was an off brand, my 15 year old dewalt still has batteries avalible for it, I've also had batteries rebuilt with new I would not recommend dewalt, or anything else made by Black & Decker as their quality dropped a great deal once they started making stuff in mexico and got worse when they moved to china, but they have their name to sell their product, but Metabo seems to be a good brand so I would trust that their compact driver would work well for your needs, otherwise I've been impressed with the driver that Makita or Bacsh make, and they are used by people I know who build cabenents and use them every day.
If you plan to use it much I would get one of the better brands light weight drills and use it on the lower speed as a screw driver, you might also look at the capasitor charged cordless screw driver, as it doesn't use batteries, and if it's super rare that you need it look at the spiral push screw drivers.

[lunarhighway]

i think i'll mainly be looking at makita or netabo, although i've recently bought a bosch jigsaw that looks pretty decent, (although that remains to be proven in practive, though bosch has a decent reputation)...but bosch had so many choises in these drills it was a bit difficuly to know what to choose
i think makita is the most expensive of the two so metabo might be the "buget" choise of the two.

my main reason for asking about the torque is that there's some really sweet small tools which would be more conveinient than a heavy drill, but if it's to light for the job it's still a waste of money... a bigger tool that doubles as a real drill would be a better investment

[Daox]

My wife just got me this one for my birthday a few days back. As it says, its pretty light for a drill. I haven't used it yet, but I love all my other Makita tools.

I previously had a 14V Ryobi drill with Ni-Cad battery. Worked ok for a while. The packs never held a great charge, and finally both went bad. I never ended up replacing them. Until then I had an ancient 6V Craftsmen single speed drill. It got me by just fine until I just got my new Makita. The point is I don't think you need to be real picky about this. Most things out there will do fine if you don't use them day in and day out.

[lunarhighway]

Most things out there will do fine if you don't use them day in and day out.

sure thing... thus far i've build the whole wall with a good old screwdriver, but these tools should last a very long time under occasional use these things will be good value for money... so there's no point in being to cheap about them.

compared to the price of a few tankfulls of gas these tools will last for all eternity

[Ryland]

I have the same Makita that Daox linked to, the compact lithium 18V and it is an amazing tool, I've had it for 2 years, bought it about a week after it became avalible partly because Makita tools are all good tools, I use one of their worm drive circular saws to cut granite even tho it was sold for cutting wood.
I use and abuse my tools to no end, the compact Makita is light and small but it handles the largest drill bits and nut drivers without a problem, from hole saws to stir sticks for dry wall mud, I use it for everything.

[lunarhighway]

i think this is the european equivalent of this machine
Makita België - Makita Belgique
the main difference will be the different net voltage and frequecy i think.

it's good to have a recommendation for this machine... sounds like it can handle what i'd use it for, so i can at least compare the specs should i go for something else

[Peter7307]

Some US magazines have comparison charts of these types of equipment.
Fine Woodworker comes to mind. Try your local library or the net and Google.

For what it is worth I have used AEG , Bosch , Makita and Metabo at various times (and even a plain old fashioned screwdriver...remember them?) and found all to be good.

I think if there was one make or model to be clear winner over the rest there would be fewer on the market.

Pete.