The PowerPlus 'mini circular saw' is a product that is especially useful for small jobs that you don't have to do every day. At the moment I am renovating and it is fine for cutting laminate. Nice and fast with reasonable precision.
Accurate enough for laminate, but not for people who, for example, want to build a cabinet where everything has to connect nicely at right angles.
The price-quality ratio is intuitively good, it even has a nice laser guide that shows fairly spot-on where you are sawing. As a result, you no longer even need the miter box for sawing laminate. If you place a thick sheet of wood under the laminate and you set the cutting depth correctly, you can easily and flexibly saw thin materials such as laminate. Keep in mind that you should always cut a little deeper so that the material to be cut is thick.
The miter box was a big plus for me, but in practice the saw goes through the guides very stiffly. The first part still slides reasonably well, but the further you go with the saw, the stiffer it gets. The linear guides seem to run towards each other. As a result, they clamp the saw, as it were. I was able to remedy this problem by applying P.T.F.E. spray (also known as Teflon spray or Tefspray). Now it slides well, but I can also see that the miter box will wear out quickly because the sliding surfaces are aluminum and the base of the tool is steel. In the long run I will probably try to mount two Teflon strips in the miter box, perhaps a job to accomplish after the move.
The machine feels safe in my hands, maybe too safe. The device commands little respect because it is so light and handy, a small mistake seems to me quickly made. It is and remains a circular saw and they do not go well with fingers and other body parts. This, plus the clunky double release (one to turn the saw on, and another to bring the saw to the right depth) makes it a slightly more dangerous saw in my opinion.
The somewhat larger models from Makita, Bosch or Festool often have a loose linear guide, this is often so well put together and such a device is more difficult to use off-the-cuff, so that people are inclined to use the guides, which it is at their best. turn a little safer. With this small circular saw from Powerplus you really want to work from the loose wrist because it is so light, and is ultimately intended for that. So pay close attention to where your hands are while cutting.
All in all I am satisfied, this is mainly because this saw fills a place in my toolkit that I was still looking for: a small handy circular saw for occasional use, which takes up little space, does not cost much and can be easily carried.
