The centre of the shop · review
The only saw here with a sliding carriage built in — which is what turns a table saw into something that crosscuts panels accurately.
The bottom line The panel saw of this group. Buy it for the carriage or do not buy it at all.
Hands-on testing pending. Nothing below is presented as our own measurement. Every figure is a manufacturer specification, read off the listing itself, and the judgements are ours — drawn from how the specification behaves in this class of machine and from what long-term owners consistently report. Where a figure is missing, we say so rather than fill it in.
254 mm blade on a 30 mm arbor, 2 000 W with constant-speed electronics, and an integrated sliding carriage. Table widening and extension are built in rather than bolted on.
Every other saw here crosscuts by sliding the workpiece across a fixed table against a mitre gauge. That works up to about the width of your own reach, and then it stops working: a panel wide enough to need two hands is a panel that will skew, and a skewed panel produces a cut that starts square and ends elsewhere.
A sliding carriage moves the workpiece past the blade on a bearing instead. The panel does not move relative to its support, so it cannot skew. For anyone regularly squaring sheet goods, this changes what the machine can do rather than how pleasant it is to use.
The motor holds its speed as the load increases. In practice this shows up in two places: on a slow feed through dense stock, where a saw without it drops revolutions and starts to burn; and at the moment the blade enters the cut, where a constant-speed motor is noticeably less likely to bog.
Anyone ripping solid timber and nothing else. You would be paying a large premium for a carriage you never push, and the Metabo above spends its money where a rip cut actually needs it.
One reference across all six markets, on one EAN — but neither the American nor the British listing carried a current price when we checked. In practice this is a machine to buy on the continent.
| Blade diameter | 254 mm |
|---|---|
| Blade bore | 30 mm |
| Motor | 2 000 W, constant-speed electronics |
| Carriage | Integrated sliding carriage |
| Table | Widening and extension, both integrated |
| Amazon reference | B00531AQK0 (identical on 6 markets) |
| EAN | 3165140509480 |
A moving table that carries the workpiece past the blade, instead of the workpiece sliding across a fixed table. For crosscutting a wide panel it is the difference between a cut that stays square along its whole length and one that drifts as the panel skews. A mitre gauge in a slot cannot do the same job on anything wide.
Only if you cut panels. For ripping solid stock, the Metabo does the same work with a better fence per euro. The carriage is the entire argument for this machine, and if you would not use it, the argument does not apply to you.
18 V · 70 mm cut height · 216 mm blade · bare tool
A cordless table saw with a 70 mm cut height and no battery in the box — and a French price nearly €300 below the British one.
Best for: Site work and small shops already holding Bosch Professional 18 V batteries
≈ £820 / 620 €
210 mm · rack-and-pinion fence · 65 mm cut
The most refined compact saw here: a rack-and-pinion fence that moves squarely by design, in a body small enough to carry in one hand.
Best for: Site work and small workshops where accuracy matters more than capacity
≈ £540 / 480 €
216 mm · 1 600 W · 30 mm bore
Bosch’s compact site saw: lighter than the class, sensibly guarded, and built around a blade small enough to limit what it can rip.
Best for: Trim, second-fix and repeated small rips, where the saw has to move between rooms or sites
≈ $845 / 340 €
Prices quoted in these summaries are dated readings. The live price is shown next to each product.
