Reviewsta.info

Overall Rating

great router - terrible manual
This is the first router I’ve ever owned. I wanted to buy a good quality tool, and this is clearly a high-quality tool package. The ability to switch from a fixed base to a plunge router is really nice. You can tell this tool is solidly built. Mine came with the above-the-table height adjuster. Haven’t needed to use it because it is so easy to adjust height through the cabinet door on my Bench Dog Pro 150 table. The router has plenty of power and is definitely quiet to operate. My shop vac makes a lot more noise than this router. The plastic cases for storage of the router and bases are pretty interesting. They can be joined together (for easy carrying of both bases) or separated easily. There is even storage for some router bits in the cases.

My only complaint is the manual is almost useless. The instructions are very difficult to read and interpret, and the photos are so poor that you can barely see what the manual is trying to illustrate. Good technical drawings would have been much better. There was no explanation about how to use the optional above-table height adjuster in the manual. The enclosed CD looks nice at first glance, but it really doesn’t give you much information except a video about how to build your own router table (which isn’t very useful if you don’t know how to use your router yet). Most of the stuff on the CD looks like promotional videos to display the product, but it doesn’t tell you how to use it. Even worse, the CD links to the Porter-Cable web site to download the product manual — they should have put this on the CD. I guess Porter-Cable figures only experienced woodworkers would buy their product, which is unfortunate. Novices like to own good tools, too, and tool manufacturers should provide manuals that show them how to use the tools properly. I have bought some books on routers that will (hopefully) fill in the gaps that Porter-Cable left wide open.

In summary, this is a great product, even for a newbie, but I gave it only 4 stars since the manual is so terrible. If you already know about routers, this is a wonderful tool to buy. If you are a novice, make sure you buy a separate book about routers if you plan to buy this product.