Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

While reviews from professionals may be of more help, I wanted to write up a review from the perspective of a home owner / do it yourselfer. I also had recently sold a bosch 4100 and can give an unbiased comparison. I feel this dewalt 7491RS is the better saw in most respects. I've only recently taken delivey of this saw and will be adding to this review as I get a bit more time in on it. My initial opinion is that Dewalt worked hard at making their 744XRS even better with this 7491RS. Nothing ground breaking but small tweaks everywhere to improve the saw. It works and works well. Assembly was fairly simple. There is an assembly instruction book seperate from the owners manual with about 2 pages of instructions. Tools needed are included however I would recommend a 13mm ratchet and box end wrench, along with some red thread locker. Assume about an hour for the job, including breaking down the box and styrofoam packing. Once built, you will find the stand to be pretty slick. Not as quick as Boschs gravity stand but quite a bit more stable, with the rear splayed legs giving alot of support. We are talking mere seconds longer to set up than the Bosch. If one were basing their purchase solely on the stands, I don't think either design would be a clear winner and I was a huge fan of the gravity rise. Where the Dewalt has it over the Bosch clearly is the wheels. The Dewalt uses semi-pneumatic wheels that will never go flat. Bosch uses standard hand truck wheels that use a tube and will eventually leak on you, guarenteed. I can't figure out why Bosch wold use tube tires on a tool that will be drug through the cast off nails, screws and staples of a construction site. The handle of the stand has a slight bit of adjustment. It can be mounted retracted for a more compact design or extended for easier manuvering and tilting. This isn't a design that can be changed rapidly, needing 4 bolts to be undone and the positions only change by about 3 inches. Still, it's a nice feature that cost almost nothing for Dewalt to add except R&D time. I mounted mine in the extended position as my saw will live mostly in the garage and I valued ease of use over taking up less space. The rack and pinion fence, basically a carryover from the 744XRS, is awesome and I feel loads better than the Bosch. The fence is stored on the left side, tucked under the table. Flip 2 tabs and you can rotate the fence off and mount it on either a small capacity or larger capacity pin mount on the right hand side of the saw. The fence can be moved by either adjusting the knob or pushing the fence with your hand, then it locks securely in place. It's a very nice design. Both Bosch and Dewalt use very light weight fences that feel cheap and toy like to me and this fence is no exception. I have kept up with some reviews online though and the pros that use these tools day in and out don't seem to report any failures. I will edit this review to reflect any problems I have but I am putting trust in Dewalt to design the tool to handle anything I can dish out. The push stick mounts to the fence in a much better spot than the Bosch 4100 (That one is at the rear of the saw, opposite where you stand). It is always at hand should you need it. The fence also has the flip over 2 position bar that acts as a support in the lower position and a short fence for close in work in the upper. Again, it feels cheap but an inspection of the pivoting hardware shows that it is very well engineered. I am very happy with all the onboard storage. Being someone who uses these tools rarely, I'll be using the riving knife almost all the time and the blade guard with anti-kickback pawls any time my work allows it. The pros mostly use only the riving knife but I want the extra safety, simply because I'm not an expert and mistakes happen. The Bosch 4100 has a slight advantage in onboard storage with the exception of the pushstick. This Dewalt will make you duck down to see what you are doing to remove or stow some of the accessories like the riving knife and miter guage. Still, it's great to have everything you need. No blade storage? What's up with that? Surely it can't be an oversight? The miter guage is a true T slot miter guage, though on the low end of the spectrum. It should be fine for what I need. The 4100 used square aluminum tubing with plastic T pieces on the end. Probobly a design that came from an older table that used plain slots and not T slots. The blade case uses a plastic cover over one side that secures to the case with built in plastic clips. It allows easy removal for clean out and quick re-assembly. This is a slightly different design than the 744XRS that used metal pins that could get lost. That design is a little more robust, this design is a little quicker and there are no metal pins to lose. I expect those plastic clips will break over time, probobly a long time for me. It's a cheap and easily replacable part however and not a must have when running the saw. Bosch uses a plastic side case that needs to be screwed on with multiple screws, a much more time consuming design. Dewalt also uses a heavy canvas like material around the blade to seal in the saw dust, yet still be pliable when the blade moves up and down. It appears well made, sturdy, and should last the life of the saw. Bosch also has it over this Dewalt with blade changes, though I may be splitting hairs. Where the Bosch uses it's one wrench and a blade locking lever permenently attached to the motor shaft, the Dewalt uses 2 wrenches. One to hold the motor shaft stationary, the other to loosen the nut. The Dewalts wrenches are stored neatly aboard and come out quickly. The bosch requires you to undo a big wingnut. Both saws use an aluminum table with what I believe is a hard anodizing treatment. The table won't rust however it will start to show wear once the hard anodizing is worn through. This shouldn't be a concern and the table will last the life of the saw, if not longer The motor is wound to produce higher RPMs than the other saws of this catagory. 4800 verses the standard 3650 of other saws. I don't know yet if this is a benefit or just a different spec. The motor does start up nice and smooth and the on/off switch is simple to use. I'll edit this review with more thoughts as I get more time on the saw. I chose this Dewalt over the Bosch for its larger rip capacity, its semi-pneumatic wheels, and it's stability. I am pretty happy with my purchase and don't regret not having the Bosch 4100, though it was a great saw for what I used it for. The Bosch 4100 is an older design and Dewalt has the benefit with this saw of having a number of years to refine it's design of the already excellent 744XRS. I feel this Dewalt is a better design for the money currently, at least until one of the other manufacturers re-design their job site saw. **Updated on Jan. 8, 2014** The blade works well for ripping. My cuts turned out smooth enough to glue thin pieces of ash together straight off the saw. Crosscutting worked ok for rough cutting, leaving some tearout (chipping of the edges of the cut) of the thin ash. You want a different blade if you want a clean finished crosscut though. Perhaps a zero clearance blade plate also. **Updated on Jan. 25, 2014** I was ripping down some 1/2" polar slats to 5/16ths and ran the slats through the machine vertically. They were 2" tall and the saw had no problem at all powering through them. For such a non conventional use of the saw, it worked great. Poplar is fairly soft so this won't be the heaviest work load the saw will see but it shows me the saw has plenty of power.