I've been using Panasonic drills for years and I think they're the best on the market. Until today I used the 14.4V drill (the EY7441) and it has performed beautifully over the years. However, sometimes it lacked some punch using big hole saws so I've retired it to home use and bought the new 18V Panasonic brushless drill for my job this morning before going to work. It comes with a choice of two battery packs, 3.0Ah or 5.0Ah. I bought it with the 3.0Ah battery packs. The ergonomics of the drill are Panasonic through and through, a very comfortable handle and perfect balance. It also has a new all metal single sleeve drill chuck with extra hard teeth that goes up to 13mm. Another feature that I like is the speed selector which adds another level of fine tuning. I've been using it all day and the new 3.0Ah batteries seem to go on forever. They're in between the older 3.3Ah batteries (that came with the 14.4V drill) and the 4.2Ah batteries in terms of run time. The older 3.3Ah batteries already have a longer run time than higher Ah batteries from other manufacturers so this should give you an idea of how long you can work on a single charge. Panasonic batteries are simply brilliant. The one thing I don't like is the new position of the LED light. On my old drill it was positioned on the base. On the new drill they moved it to underneath the drill chuck. They should have stuck with the position on the base. Apart from the minor negative, it's a superb drill. It has loads of torque, the batteries have a very long run time, the ergonomics are great and it's very compact at just 178mm's long. Another nice thing is that it's compatible with battery packs dating back to 2010.

If Festool doesn't bring out an impact driver this year I'm going to buy the Panasonic EY75A7PN2G .
To my knowledge it's one of the smallest on the market.
The body length of 118 mm is even smaller then the battery.
And as mentioned by Lemwise Pana makes the best batteries on the market.

I heard a lot of good thing about Panasonic drills
Never owned it but used it long time ago
But I don't see much of them anymore
They were used a lot by cabinets installer
But I have not seen any in many years
Too bad.

Panasonic drills aren't common in my line of work either. There's just one guy I know of who also uses the brand. He bought the new 18V drill before me and after using his I also bought it. There's one big plus to it not being a common brand though, I don't have to worry about other people using my batteries

What still doesn't make any sense to me is why they moved the LED light to right underneath the drill chuck. It was positioned perfectly on the bottom at the base. Other brands are now finally placing it on the base and Panasonic is going backwards. I just don't get the logic behind this decision.

Too bad the new brushless drill isn't on offer in the states, you'd absolutely love it. It really is a beast.