When you're working on plastic, like the kind used in exercise equipment.
My more powerful Dewalt, especially when the battery is freshly charged, will break the plastic shrouds (no matter how careful I try to be, and the lowest setting on the clutch is still too strong for plastic) while my el cheapo $25 swap meet drill weighs half as much, and won't break the plastic, even if the battery is freshly charged.
And as a repairman, I know everything breaks, so replacement cost is much less.
At $25 a pop, I can replace a lot of drills before I reach the $80-90 it would cost for the cheapest home depot drill.
99% of the time, I only use it to unscrew small screws to get access to the innards of a machine, so it's fine.
I have used the el cheapo to customize some decks, drilling holes in half inch thick particle board, and it's not the best drill for that, but given my use of it, and the fact that it only sees heavy duty use 1% of the time, it's perfect.
If you're a regular person, homeowner, you're wasting your money on that $100 drill- it's too heavy to easily control, it's too powerful, and the replacement cost is too high. Especially if you lose the charger.
