Menard's had both these tools on sale and I bought the Hitachi from them. Lowes price matched on the Bosch tool, plus an extra 10% off, so I ended up getting the Bosch tool for about $1.50 cheaper. It gave me a nice opportunity to compare these tools. I was looking to replace my cheap - and broken - bandsaw and 20 year old B&D jigsaw. I acknowledge that the Bosch 1590 jigsaws are probably best - not that I've ever tried one - but since this is a tool I don't use every month, I was hoping for a cheaper option. At 69.99, these were worth taking a look at.

The Hitachi saw has many favorable reviews, and one magazine gave it their "best value jigsaw" award several years ago. The only reviews I found for the Bosch tool were extremely negative, complaining about the blade attachment. More about this later.

Open the Hitachi box and you find a jigsaw, a blade, and a manual. The blade guard on the Hitach is a piece of plastic that I do not think will last long. The tool has a 5 year warranty.

Open the Bosch box and you found a nice soft-sided case/bag, the saw and a blade, a plastic splinter guard, and the manual. The blade guard is a piece of metal.

The Bosch tool clamed it had 6 amps; the Hitachi tool claimed to have 5.8. The Hitach tool had an effective LED headlight The speed control for the Bosch is built into the trigger; it is located on the front on the Hitachi tool.

I used the same blade for sample cuts with both tools on a piece of 3/4 pine, plywood, and the same piece of 3/4" MDF that stalled my bandsaw. The tools seem to cut the same; they would follow a line, make curves, and the cuts did not show any blade distortion. The Bosch MAY have vibrated slightly less, but I have no way to measure this other then the feel of my hand. Either way, I had no problems with vibrations from either tool.

The decided factor between the two tools was their blade attachment. The Hitachi tool has a lever on the front of the saw. It is plastic and may be breakable, but it is easy to use. The Bosch tool requires that you jam a finger between the blade and the blade guard to push a tiny lever (make sure you unplug the saw!!!) and hold it while you insert the blade. Too much of the manual is dedicated to different ways of fixing the mechanism, depending on how it goes awry.

Extra accessories for the Hitachi - a splinter guard, better blade guard, etc. - are available on Amazon and other places. I had to find a part schematic that have the Hitachi part numbers, then do some searching. I was set to order 20 bucks worth of gear, but decided to hold off as shipping was 30.

I would recommend the Hitachi tool to anyone looking for a "value" jigsaw.