Who wins the Makita Maktrak v Milwaukee battle of the boxes?

We're amongst the first on UK shores to have laid our hands on the hotly anticipated Makita Maktrak system. So how does it look? And the question on everyone's lips, has it been worth the hype? We bought the system ourselves from the USA which means we can give you our usual transparent and honest feedback. 

Also, as a bit of added interest, we've placed it in a direct head-to-head with it's Milwaukee counterparts. Just to see how they quite literally measure up. Not just in terms of cost, but of size and features too. Buckle up for this super-sized review. It's literally going to be a big one, and it might offer up a few surprises too!

What's all the fuss about the Makita Maktrak

We've been excited about the imminent arrival of this system since it's launch was being rumored last year. On it's release, we knew it would land stateside first. As often happens we knew the UK and Europe would have a little wait to get it. As Makita fans we knew we couldn't wait till then. So ours has been shipped in from the USA so we could check out if it really was going to live up to all the hype. Plus, of course, so we could design and make a set of ready to roll foam inserts for it too. 

It was always nailed on to be a massive upgrade on the old Makpac. But actually, when we got it, it didn't quite excite us as we'd hoped. It looked fantastic as we knew it would, but outside of that, still had quite a few elements that underwhelmed. You can watch our in-depth review for much more detail on that here. That said, we can see a market for this beast of a tool system. And the colours are super attractive in a largely all-black box market. Importantly though, how does it measure up when compared to it's closest competitor...?

Makita V Milwaukee... who wins!?

First, important to say that there isn't an 'identical' like for like configuration. However,  we've come up with one which looks and serves as close as it's possible to get. We've taken all the elements of the new Makita Makpak stack and matched it with equivalent products from the Milwaukee Packout range. Here's what we got with our Maktrak system from Acme in the USA.

• Makita MAKTRAK rolling tool chest
• Makita MAKTRAK Large Toolbox
• Makita MAKTRAK Medium Tool Box
• Makita MAKTRAK Deep Medium organiser
• Makita MAKTRAK Low-Profile Medium Organiser
• Makita MAKTRAK Deep Compact Organiser
• Makita MAKTRAK XL Extension Toolbox

Obviously we didn't factor in the cost of the shipping of our Maktrak from the USA. That would have really skewed the comparison unfavourably. But when it comes to pricing, there is still a big difference. Check out the price comparison between the two comparative set ups:

Already, you can see that at $844.93 / £681.27 the Maktrak is coming in at a whopping $118.52 / £96.35 more. That's for essentially the same set up, which cost us just £584.92 / $726.41 from Power Tool Mate. 

Of course price isn't everything, so when it comes to scale, how do they measure up?

Makita Maktrak sizing compared to Packout.

Looking at the specs, it already sounds like the Makita Maktrak rolling tool chest is going to measure up unfavourably. When compared to the Milwaukee Packout Rolling Tool Chest, it only has an estimated 21 gallon capacity. That's versus the Packout's 32 mega gallons. Interestingly, both specify a handle which will bear a load of 250lbs / 113kg. Though the positioning of the handles on the rolling tool chests tips our preference in the direction of the Milwaukee version.

Equally, it's the same Rolling Tool Chest for each brand which really upsets the applecart when it comes to holding capacity:

A little hard to believe, but all in, and again with that essential rolling cart key to making all the difference, this adds up to a whopping 43 litres of additional space in the Packout. That's 22% more usable space over the whole system! Whilst the other boxes are much of a muchness in size terms, at 5,000 cubic inches (Maktrak rolling case) as compared to 7,600 cubic inches in the Packout chest, the difference is clear. On paper anyway as looking at them side by side you really wouldn't think there was such a massive disparity.

Other key factors in the comparison.

An important consideration is that the Milwaukee system is IP rated against dust and water ingress which for fairly obvious reasons is really important to us in the UK market, though maybe a little less so elsewhere in the world. Also, whilst we're trying to impartially compare like-for-like systems here, it's hard to ignore the fact that if we wanted drawers in the set up at any point, whilst that's possible already with Milwaukee, Makita don't yet have a drawer option available.

Conversely, while the XL Packout box doesn't intuitively mount beside the tool chest on the handle as it does with the Maktrak, we don't have the highest opinion of the mounting bracket on the Makita version either, so both have potential room for improvement in that respect.

There is much to like about both configurations, but in the UK market it's hard to see that many would be wooed from a practical perspective by the 110lbs (50kg!) unlaiden weight of the whole Makita system. So even without any tools in the system you'd be looking at a two man lift, unless you broke it down into individual boxes for loading. Add in your tools though and that's a hefty stack to try and maneuver. Not that the Milwaukee system weighs in at much less, especially given that it has so much additional space in it for more tools too so the capacity to become even weightier.

So, which system wins.

Well we have our favourite, but it's a subjective thing and depends on so many different factors. Creating a tool storage solution that's as unique as you and perfectly suited to your needs is what it's all about, so more range and options is never a bad thing in our eyes.

Also, in related news, in order to make this comparison, we needed to get hold of a couple of the Milwaukee boxes we haven't had before too. So the good news is that we are now also stocking custom fit inserts for the Milwaukee Packout XL Tool Box and the much talked about Milwaukee Packout Rolling Tool Chest.  So, not before time, we've now added those to our Milwaukee range too.

You can check out the full comparison here: