DeWalt DCW600N Router Review – UK Tried & Tested

I picked this up to sort out a run of oak shelving that needed a housing joint for the fixed centre shelf and a chamfer along every front edge once the boards were cut to length. Before either of those started, I hit a stupid problem. The bit wouldn’t sit. I pushed it into the collet, wound the nut down, and it still felt loose, like nothing was gripping the shank.

Turns out the collet fitted as standard is 8mm. DeWalt list it as “8mm 1/4in” in the same breath on the box, which reads like it takes either size, and it doesn’t. What’s actually in there is 8mm, and every bit I own is 1/4in shank, because that’s what almost every cheap UK bit is. I had to track down a proper 1/4in collet before anything would fit, and DeWalt sell more than one 1/4in collet across their router range, so it’s worth asking for the exact one rather than grabbing the cheapest thing that looks close. A mismatched collet and nut can hold a bit off centre even when both halves look fine on their own, and it’s the sort of mistake that only shows up once you’re already cutting.

The depth ring, the latch, and changing bits

Once the right collet was in, the depth ring turned out to be the best thing about this tool. Undo the latch, turn the ring to where you want it, do the latch back up. It’s marked in 1/64in steps and one full turn shifts the bit exactly half an inch, so once it’s zeroed against a fresh bit you can dial a setting in and know you’ve landed on it rather than measuring twice. That’s brilliant for small, repeated moves, incremental passes on a housing joint, nudging a chamfer a hair deeper at a time. Where it drags is one big depth change in a single go. There’s no separate macro button, so a large jump means sitting there turning the ring for a while. For the kind of work most people use a compact router for, small repeated adjustments rather than one huge plunge, that trade works out in your favour more often than not.

The latch itself is either fully open or fully shut, nothing to guess at in between, which I like. The only thing worth knowing is that it has to be properly seated shut, not just closed looking, or the depth can creep mid cut. Worth a glance the first few times, until the click becomes familiar enough to trust by feel.

Bit changes go through a spindle lock set into the middle of the base. Hold it in, the shaft stops turning, and the 17mm spanner does the rest, one handed, with nobody needed to hold anything steady. If the base has to come off entirely, there are two release buttons either side of the ring that pinch together to free it. Never do the collet nut up with nothing in it, not even by hand. It can crush the collet out of shape for good.

Specifications and scores

How it performed in our tests

I ran a rabbet cut through some dense hardwood to see what it could really do rather than take the numbers on trust, half an inch by half an inch. It went through in ten seconds flat, no bogging, no cutting out. That is about as fast as a router this size gets. Edge profiles and chamfers go through in fewer passes than a weaker motor would need, and the housing joint didn’t ask much of it either, a few passes each a shade deeper than the last, the depth ring making every one of them repeatable. Speed runs from 16,000 up to 27,000rpm across seven marked settings on the dial, so a setting that suits a given bit and material can be found again rather than guessed at each time. Get it wrong and you will know about it. Too fast on a large bit in dense timber scorches the edge and can grab, too slow on a small bit leaves a rougher finish that wants more sanding after. The brushless motor is part of why it doesn’t struggle, nothing in there to wear down and replace, and the electronic brake stops the bit dead the moment you let go of the trigger rather than letting it spin down on its own.

The base is D shaped and about 100mm across, bigger than most routers this size. The flat side gave my fingers something to brace against on the chamfer work, and the round side tracked along the straight runs without me having to correct it. It’s clear too, with two LEDs built in either side of the bit, so between the two I could watch the cut rather than guess at it, right up until the day I fit a dust extraction attachment and lose most of that view. The clear base won’t stay perfectly see through forever either. Fine dust and timber contact scuffs it over months of use, though a light automotive plastic polish brings some of that clarity back if it ever starts bothering you.

What’s in the box, and the battery platform

In the box you get the router, a parallel fence, the collet already fitted, and the spanner. No battery, no charger, since it runs off the wider 18V XR platform and whatever you already own fits straight on. No edge guide beyond that parallel fence, no dust chute, and no second base either, and that’s a thinner kit than some other cordless routers in this bracket ship with as standard. Budget for any of that separately if the job needs it, rather than assuming it’s in the box.

A plunge base is available too, sold on its own rather than bundled in. It isn’t really buying a second router, though. The fixed base and the plunge base share the same motor unit, it just lifts out of one and drops into the other, so you end up buying a second base, not a second tool. There’s a centering procedure for the subbase if it ever needs adjusting, done with a small cone and pin tool sold separately again. Worth factoring that cost into the real total if plunge cuts are part of the plan from the outset, because it isn’t included here.

The whole thing is built on the body of DeWalt’s older corded compact router, same footprint, same accessory mounting points, so the plunge base, the template guide subbase and the dust shrouds all fit either one. Anyone already holding accessories from the corded version doesn’t need to rebuy them just because this one lost its cord. The only physical change is a rubberised strip round the base for grip, which the corded model never had.

Performance and limitations

The power switch is the one thing I’d change. It sits under a rubber cover on the side, which keeps the dust out fair enough, but it’s fiddlier to find by feel than a plain toggle, and the label on it is hard to read once your hands are covered in sawdust, which mine were by the time the housing joint was done.

It weighs about 1.5kg tool only, on the heavier side for a compact router, most of that down to an aluminium motor housing and base rather than plastic. You’d think that would matter more in the hand than it does. Once you’re routing rather than just holding it, the balance and that big D shaped base soak most of it up. The aluminium construction has its own upside too. It’s why the motor unit can move between the fixed base and the plunge base without the mounting points wearing loose the way a plastic housing eventually would. Maximum cutter diameter it’s rated for is 30mm, worth checking a bit’s actual cutting width against that rather than just its shank size, before assuming it will spin safely inside the base opening.

I registered it the evening it arrived, since the cover only runs to three years once that’s done, rather than from the date on the receipt. One year otherwise. It’s exactly the sort of thing that gets forgotten once the box is out of sight, so do it while the paperwork is still on the side.

I’m on tools most days, so a vibration figure isn’t just a number to me, it’s one more thing I keep half an eye on.

Final verdict, is it worth it

Once the right collet was sorted, it saw both jobs through without a complaint. The chamfers came out clean from start to finish, and the housing joint square with the right depth on every pass. The one thing worth remembering before any of that is checking which collet is actually fitted rather than trusting what the box implies. Sort that on day one and the depth ring, the base and the power on offer make this a genuinely good buy if you’re already sat on the 18V platform.