I'm interested in hearing your opinions.

As a do-it-yourselfer, I'm wondering how much I need to spend on a power miter saw. I'm looking at a $200 Kobalt, 10" sliding miter, SM2507LW. Also looking at a Hitachi , 12" sliding miter, C12RSH. Both are sold at Lowes.
$200 is the more attractive price point, but I don't want to spend $200 on something I'm going to regret buying. On the other hand, I'm only using it for my own home projects, so it's hard to justify $445.
Projects in my future include crown molding, fascia board replacement, and maybe even hardwood flooring.

What do you think?

Thanks.

we've remodelled our whole house, and rebuilt two walls of the shed, with a plain old $100 Ryobi 10 inch. that's after a son's buddy redid his basement with it.

kinda got slammed around a bit, I had to realign the backstop with the base before doing anything serious, but it's been fine.

a sliding compound miter is usually a $280 and up tool, so that's not an awful price. but consider what's needed. in addition to being stable and heavy enough so it doesn't walk around as you're starting to cut, the saw in a sliding miter is suspended on the slide tracks. they have to be greatly overbuilt to stay in line for years... or for that matter, from the start to the end of the cut. they either need linear bearings, costly, or you have Oilite bronze bushings, and either requires some effort to keep the slides clean of dust and oiled as you work.

I don't do enough fine work to do all that housekeeping. and the better half is cheap. I've used one on a volunteer house rehab, and it could have used more maintenance.

Good points about the added maintenance required with a sliding miter saw swshrad.
Your comments have gotten me looking at a 12" Hitachi with no slide. It's a C12FDH selling for around $230. That's not much more than the Kobalt 10" slider and the Hitachi comes with a nice warranty and more favorable reviews.

Any other opinions/thoughts on the choices available?

Thanks.

I don't have a compound miter saw. I have an ordinary Makita miter saw very similar to this one:

http://cdn.sulitstatic.com/ima...1950362_dsc00741.jpg

And the only reason I regret buying it is because it's got a cast iron base which makes it heavy as sin.

I knew I needed a miter saw, and I knew I wanted a quality one, and Makita has always had a good name when it came to tools. But, every time I do any job where I need to use my miter saw, I have to carry it with me to the job site. And, I just loath the thought of that because the thing is so heavy.

I don't know if your situation is similar or different, but if you're going to have to move that saw around a lot, then get a LIGHTER saw that's truly portable. The one I have is barely luggable.

Not so sure about all that need maintance, I've had a Hitachi 12" slidder for over 5 years and have had to do no more then wipe it off when done with it.
In most cases a slider has more travel.
If you plan on any deck building, replacing stair treads, wide crown moulding, it's best to have more travel so you do not have to flip the board over to finish the cut.
I bought a 10" Dewalt saw once and bought it back the same day and bought a 12".
It would not even cut through a 2 X 8.
I bought Ryobi 12" mitre saw about 10 years ago and used it almost every day for 5 years before I bought my slider and it still works fine, it's been rained on, tipped over several times, used for 8 straight hours at a time and still works.
It's not precise anymore but still cuts framing lumber fine.

I can suggest you Hitachi power miter because it is good and safe for use.I'm also use this miter very long time and I've a nice experienced with Hitachi power miter.

Home Improvement Worcester

Regardless of which make/model you buy, make sure you keep extra new blades handy...dull blades really make the motor work harder. Also, if you are going to do a variety of cuts, get both small teeth for your trim and larger teeth for lumbur cuts...if you ever cut something like laminate flooring, you better have extra blades...if you get expensive blades, you can resharpen the highly quality ones...cheap ones, toss.

One of my two frontrunner choices, the Hitachi 12 inch Dual Bevel, compound miter, no slide, model C12FDH, just went UP in price from $229 to $299 at Loews.
What's up with that?
Are they (manufacturer or retailer) figuring that the demand is so high in the summer that they can jack up the price? Does that imply that the price may come back down when the weather turns cold?