Last year I was shopping for a new router and heard many wonderful things about Triton routers.  Unfortunately, Triton was experiencing some sort of organizational or financial issues and the Triton routers were no longer on the market.

However, Triton was recently bought out by HTC and the routers were back, albeit backlogged.  I finally got one through my local WoodCraft dealer and got a chance to take it for a test drive.  While it will ultimately live in a router table, I found it to be pretty nice for handheld work.  It’s well-balanced, lots of power, and height changes are fast and easy.

There are some things I don’t like.  While the height control (Triton calls it a winder) makes it very easy to change the height, it also feels very cheap.  I’m concerned about it’s long-term reliability.  I also find the power switch to be very clumsy. And the “soft start” is still kinda sudden, my Freud FT3000VCE has a much better soft start.

Regardless of my reservations, I’m seriously considering selling the Freud and getting a second Triton.  Changing heights on the Freud is painfully slow and I love how fast it is on the Triton.