Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

These batteries have a design defect that will kill them prematurely and a 'feature' that will force you to buy another. There is internal circuit to control charge and count how many times it has charged or failed charging. This circuit is powered off a couple cells only, so if you leave without use too long those cells will zero out while the remaining are fully charged. This will cause a fail charging, and while it could be recoverable (if not too deep discharged) the scheme of a 'smart battery' (should we call it a scam?) prevents it from charging on the 'smart charger' and you are out $100 for a new one. It is another 'evil marketing' ploy where someone at Makita (formerly known for excellent products) convinced that they could make a lot more money selling a battery a year than one tool every ten. After buying and disassembling a new battery (11/2011 vintage) it proves they were indeed in bad faith. he battery circuit is now redesigned, gets wired to all steps in the cell (perhaps just to alternate which one to draw power from, perhaps to further reject batteries - to be seen). Another suspicious move is that they added a white plastick 'seal' covering one of the screws (easily replaced with a white gift card portion punched on a paper puncher). Mechanical changes were also made inside the battery pack so the new cells and circuit will not fit inside the old one without cutting some plastic portions. Yet to be seen is if the new model will also die prematurely or if they fired Dr. Evil Sales and good engineering triumphed. Stay tuned...