What I have found, is there is no one brand of tool that fits all applications (except maybe Festool hee hee). I favor certain brands for certain lines of tools i.e, I like Bosch for drills, Hitachi for air tools, DeWalt for saws, etc. Of course there are exceptions to those too, especially with specialty tools. Price is pretty low on the list of determining factors....as has been said, if you use that as a motivator, you will be highly disappointed in the long run. The only way to find what works for you is long term use. You can speed up the process by only buying quality gear to begin with....two or three cheap pieces of equipment are usually more expensive than one good one anyway.