Fanttik Electric Screwdriver Review: A Light-Duty Power Tool

You should own a drill.

It’s a beginner-friendly power tool that’s handy for hanging pictures and assembling furniture. It can also tackle bigger household repairs and DIY home improvements. A basic model can last for decades and carry you from apartment living through homeownership.

But if you haven’t learned how to use one, a power drill can be intimidating. A few of my Wirecutter colleagues have told me that they’re afraid they’ll hurt themselves or destroy their apartment and lose their security deposit. My wife, who is otherwise pretty handy (she’s been known to patch drywall and can fix a leaky toilet), says she doesn’t like drills because they’re too heavy.

Recently, I’ve been getting lots of ads (and press pitches) for sleek, Instagram-worthy electric screwdrivers from new brands such as Fanttik and Hoto. They promise to be friendlier alternatives to the electric drill, and the marketing is starkly different from the get-it-done energy of a classic power tool. Traditional tool brands including Milwaukee and DeWalt make e-drivers, too.

But the newer companies are trying to present a more casual vibe, in contrast to the artful plumes of sawdust and well-stocked garage workshops you typically see in ads from the traditional tool makers. Earlier this summer my local Costco even had a huge display of Fanttik e-drivers set up, featuring a picture of a guy with a trendy mustache assembling some Scandi minimalist furniture.

Could these electric screwdrivers be a lighter, easier-to-use, less-intimidating alternative to the classic drill? I bought a Fanttik S1 Pro and got a Hoto Snapbloq kit on loan to see how they would compare to the drills I had around the house, which included the DeWalt DCD703F1 Xtreme 5-in-1, a relatively compact 12-volt drill that we recommend in our guide to the best drills, and the Ryobi One+ 18V PCL206K1, a cheap, chunky drill that came in a power tool starter pack.

What I found is that an electric screwdriver can do the job more quickly than a manual screwdriver, but it’s gentle enough that untrained, unsteady hands can’t get into too much trouble.

It didn’t come as a total shock, but I liked both of the electric screwdrivers for what they were. Their svelte chassis aren’t much bigger or heavier than those of the multi-bit hand screwdrivers that Wirecutter recommends. My wife immediately felt comfortable with their light, compact frames, and even my 7-year-old daughter could hold them steady.

Personally, I’ve found that a small drill like the 2.5-pound DeWalt model doesn’t feel like a burden, especially for just a couple of minutes at a time. (The bulky Ryobi drill is another story.) But the Fanttik e-driver is a quarter of the weight of the DeWalt drill, and the Hoto e-driver is even smaller. That’s enough to make a difference.

Both e-drivers come in self-contained kits, with a broad selection of extra driver bits for different screw types. They also use USB-C chargers, like most current smartphones and many other gadgets, which is rather convenient. These kits take up much less room than the combined footprint of a traditional drill, bit kit, and battery-charger setup.

The electric screwdrivers are also exceptionally easy to use. Swapping the magnetic driver bits couldn’t be simpler, and they barely have any settings to puzzle over.

Most drills, by contrast, have a twist-on bit holder, two speeds, and at least a dozen clutch settings to choose from, depending on how much torque you need for any particular job. I’m willing to bet that almost every DIYer occasionally forgets to adjust those settings correctly and ends up stripping a screw, rounding off a drill bit, splitting the wood, or twisting their wrist.

You never have those problems with an e-driver. They spin much slower than drills, and because their maximum torque settings barely surpass a drill’s minimum torque setting, there’s little risk of overtightening a screw. They still have enough oomph to easily put screws through drywall or into (and out of) predrilled pilot holes in wood or other hard materials.

But the electric drivers struggle to drive screws straight into wood without a pilot hole. I managed to do it with the Fanttik e-driver and a nonslip, star-head screw a handful of times, but I had to lean into the tool pretty hard, and the motor sounded miserable. Plus, the Fanttik e-driver still couldn’t quite sink the screwhead flush with the wood’s surface, which could be a dealbreaker even for simpler projects like hanging floating shelves or curtain rods.

E-drivers don’t come with bits for drilling pilot holes, either. Even if you’re willing to buy more bits, a lot of the common ones don’t fit into an e-driver’s hex-shaped chuck. There are probably some workarounds, if you have the money and patience, but at that point it makes more sense to just get a traditional drill and bit kit.

So I haven’t changed my mind: If you have to buy one power tool, and you have even the tiniest inkling that your DIY projects could stretch beyond flat-pack bookshelf assembly, get a drill. “A really nice 12-volt drill can do 10 times the work of an electric screwdriver and might only cost an extra $20 or $30 if you get one on sale,” says Doug Mahoney, Wirecutter’s veteran tool reviewer.

Some great drills weigh as little as 2 pounds now, so yours doesn’t have to be particularly cumbersome. If you’re afraid of the power, you can find dozens of great tutorials that walk you through how to use a drill safely.

I’m not even convinced that electric screwdrivers are much of an improvement over a great manual screwdriver, either. The ratcheting, multi-bit MegaPro 13-in-1 screwdriver, our recommendation, is half the price of an e-driver and is a wrist-saving, bit-holding pleasure to use.

All that said, electric screwdrivers, across the category, have thousands of positive owner reviews. They do seem to serve a purpose in professional tool kits, even if their place is alongside a typical drill. Some Taskrabbit contractors prefer to use e-drivers for furniture-assembly gigs, if their Reddit posts are to be believed.

The best use for an e-driver might be as a replacement for a small precision screwdriver, the kind you might use for tinkering with electronics, watches, and other small machines. Hoto actually markets its Snapbloq S-A01 model as a precision screwdriver, and that model comes with smaller, more obscure bit shapes than you’d need for most household maintenance and upgrades. Fanttik also makes some popular precision kits.

I’ll keep using my drills, but I have a hunch that my wife might be reaching for an e-driver a lot more often. If that’s what inspires her to take on more projects, more power to her.

This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Maxine Builder.