Which DeWalt Circular Saws You Should Avoid Buying (And Which To Get Instead)

"Majoring in the minor" is a phrase you run across occasionally when someone seems to be paying too much attention to details that seem insignificant. But it is, by definition, relative — and sometimes complaining about minor problems is perfectly justified. If you were to, say, spend $250 on a circular saw because you needed one with dust extraction capabilities, only to find that the necessary adapter isn't available, that's a perfectly valid nit to pick. After all, you weren't really buying a circular saw; you were buying a circular saw with dust extraction.

It turns out that complaints about DeWalt circular saws are rare. Of the 28 models currently offered by the company, all have great reviews on both DeWalt's website and on major retailers like Lowes and Home Depot. What we found is that all of their circular saws save three have spectacularly good ratings. One of those three is the DCS590 20V MAX XR Brushless Cordless 7-1/4 in. Circular Saw (you should familiarize yourself with DeWalt model numbers if you're comparison shopping), which promises easy dust collection, though DeWalt doesn't appear to sell an adapter to connect the saw to a dust collector or shop vac.

Dust collection connectivity for DeWalt tools is a long-running problem. The company offers adapters like the DWV9000 and DWV9190, which combined should connect you to most DeWalt dust extractors and shop vacs. But if the saw itself doesn't have a dust collection shroud, these will do you little good. The only DeWalt shroud we could find for one of their circular saws was the DCS77DC Dust Port Connector for DCS577, which is for their highly rated 60V MAX Brushless Cordless 7-1/4 in. Worm Drive Saw.

The other two saws that customers reported problems with were the DCS565 20V MAX XR 6 1/2 in. Brushless Cordless Circular Saw and the DCS573 20V MAX XR 6 1/2 in. Brushless Cordless Circular Saw. The DCS565 had few recurring complaints. A handful of reviewers on DeWalt's website suggested that the switch tends to fail or work intermittently after a very short period of use, that the trigger safety mechanism is difficult to use, and that there is no rip guide available for this saw in spite of there being a set screw in the saw's shoe for securing a guide. Nothing earth-shattering there, but you might prefer the DCS391, a brushed version that doesn't have as many reported problems, or the FlexVolt DCS578B, which purchasers seem to almost universally enjoy.

Sometimes determining what is a systemic problem from reviews is a little like reading tea leaves. But not in this case for the DCS573. Among the one-star reviews for this saw on DeWalt's website, 14 out of 18 mention the same problem: the shoe, or baseplate, isn't perpendicular to the blade. Many also mentioned that the markings on the shoe aren't accurate. The out-of-square shoe effectively makes it impossible to get a perfect saw cut every time, so you can only make cuts by following a line visually — not nearly accurate enough for many kinds of work. It's possible that DeWalt is about to discontinue this saw; no photos are available online, and neither Lowe's nor Home Depot sells it, which is probably for the best. Instead, try the DCS578 FlexVolt version with a brake or the DCS574 20-Volt Max XR version.

Reviews can be extremely inconsistent across various sources. Based on our observations, it simply doesn't seem possible to have a DeWalt saw rated 2.7 stars on either the Lowe's or Home Depot websites, but the DCS573 has earned this low rating on DeWalt's website. Nonetheless, we dutifully trawled through many dozens of one- and two-star reviews on the Home Depot and Lowe's sites, and all reviews on the DeWalt site, for circular saws in tool-only configurations rather than in sets. We noted every complaint and highlighted repeated issues.

Of course, the business of trusting online reviews is always a troubled path to take. In spite of its willingness to let poor scores be shown, we did notice that most positive reviews on DeWalt's site were marked either "giveaway entry" or "incentivized review" — probably not an indicator of reliability. Still, we prioritized these reviews over the retailers' sites, and for good reason.

Both Lowes and Home Depot sites reported reviews for incorrect products. When we were investigating the DCS565, Lowe's showed us a lot of reviews for other products — particularly batteries, while the Home Depot site showed us many reviews for a Milwaukee tape measure. It's difficult to believe that including those scores didn't skew the results to some degree. Worse, we noticed that some of the Home Depot and Lowes reviews are identical, which might suggest that the reviews aren't entirely reliable or, at a minimum, aren't what they appear to be — reviews collected from Home Depot and Lowe's customers.