Staniam said:
Having used or owned all the jigsaws mentioned I'd put the Bosch JS572EBL second to the Mafell P1cc for best jigsaw on the market. And as others have said, laminate isn't as demanding aa you might think. I just did four funky rooms in my house with laminate and bought some Bosch laminate blades, 5 pack. Didn't even go through 1.
Agree. I wanted the Mafell, but they stupidly don't make a D grip version and I don't like barrel grips.
So I chose between the Bosch JS572 (160 BCE in the UK) and the Carvex 420. Using the same blade in both on the same stock the Bosch produced consistently squarer cuts than the 420. It was only a small margin but the Bosch cuts were perfectly square and the Festool a fraction off.
The Festool wasn't bad, but for £50 less than the Carvex, plus the fact you don't have t buy a tilting base, I couldn't find any downside to getting the Bosch over the Festool. Bosch even do a circle tape measure style cutter almost identical to Festool and an adapter to use with both Festool and Bosch/Mafell rails.
The only few advantages I can see for the Festool are the various bases, if that sort of thing floats your boat (seems unnecessary to me). The fact it sits in a CMS module to act like a scroll saw, though again I don't think I'd ever use that. Finally the Plug-It cord, but again that's not a make or break for me. Ultimately the primary function of cutting as a handheld jigsaw being the most important consideration, the Bosch beat the Carvex for accuracy and that was most important in my decision.
Though as others have pointed out, cutting 10mm laminate floor could be done with a £/$20 saw with the correct blade. It's only when you start cutting 2"+ stock that you really start to see any difference in accuracy.