DeWalt DW735 vs DW735X — Is the Upgrade Worth It?

The DW735 vs DW735X debate has evolved with all the vague “better value” noise flying around. As someone who spent three years running a DW735X in a small workshop — and had one too many conversations with woodworkers who bought the base unit and immediately regretted it — I got hands-on with this particular buying decision. Spoiler: it collapses into a $70 arithmetic problem once you understand what you’re actually looking at.

The Only Differences Between DW735 and DW735X

But what is the DW735X, really? In essence, it’s the same planer in a different box. But it’s much more than that — or rather, it’s exactly two things more than that.

The motor is identical. Cutter head, two-speed gearbox, material removal rate, 13-inch cutting width, fan-assisted chip ejection — all identical. You are buying the same machine either way. Full stop.

What the X bundle adds:

• Infeed and outfeed extension tables that attach to both ends of the planer
• One extra set of replacement knives — three blades total, matching the three-knife cutter head

That’s it. No upgraded motor. No different dust port. No enhanced depth stop. I remember unboxing mine and double-checking the model stamp on the actual machine — half-convinced I’d gotten a mislabeled base unit. The planers are physically stamped the same. The extension tables arrived in a separate cardboard sleeve tucked inside the main box. That’s your upgrade, right there.

The extension tables deserve more attention than they usually get. They’re rigid steel extensions — not flimsy aluminum — that slide into receiver slots on both the infeed and outfeed sides. Each one adds roughly 16 inches of support surface. That matters enormously when you’re running an 8-foot board through and need it to stay flat on entry and exit without drooping. Without that support, long boards tilt slightly going in or coming out, which creates snipe at the board ends — that familiar shallow divot anyone who’s used a lunchbox planer knows all too well.

The extra knife set is a practical inclusion, not a marketing filler item. DW735 knives — DeWalt part number DW7352, if you’re searching — are double-sided disposables. Run one edge to dullness, flip them, run the other edge, then replace. Having a backup set in the drawer means you’re not halting a project mid-session waiting on a Home Depot delivery that may or may not arrive Thursday.

The Cost Math — What You Actually Save

This is the piece to know up front. Every other comparison article either skips it entirely or waves past it with something useless like “the X offers better value.” Here are actual numbers.

The DW735 base unit runs approximately $530 to $560 new at Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Amazon — depending on the week. The DW735X runs approximately $600 to $620 in the same channels. I paid $609 for mine at a Home Depot in 2021. Call the premium roughly $60 to $70 on average.

Now price the accessories separately:

• DeWalt DW7351 infeed/outfeed table set — approximately $55 to $75, sometimes $79 on Amazon without a Prime discount applied
• DeWalt DW7352 replacement knives, three-piece set — approximately $22 to $28

Low end: $55 plus $22 equals $77 in accessories. High end: $75 plus $28 equals $103. The X bundle premium sits at $60 to $70. You save somewhere between $10 and $40 buying the X instead of the base unit and sourcing accessories separately — depending on where prices land on any given afternoon.

Not a massive windfall. But not nothing. And more importantly, you never have to deal with tracking down the DW7351 table set, which has historically gone in and out of stock in strange patterns — apparently it carries lower inventory priority than the main unit SKU, so it disappears quietly and without warning.

Avoid the path I took — or rather, don’t make the mistake I watched other people make. They buy the base DW735 because it’s cheaper upfront, skip the tables because they figure they’ll manage, then order them anyway six months later after a long board goes sideways mid-session. Net result: full accessory retail plus the inconvenience tax. Buying the X upfront kills that problem at the root.

One number worth anchoring to: if the X premium ever climbs above $100 compared to the base unit at the same retailer on the same day, run the math fresh before assuming the bundle is still a deal. It’s only a deal when the bundled accessories cost more to buy separately than the premium you’re paying. Check current prices every time. Retail shifts constantly.

Do You Actually Need the Tables?

Frustrated by inconsistent results on a 6-foot ash board, I spent an embarrassing stretch adjusting feed pressure and blame before I realized the real problem: I was running the board unsupported on exit. The outfeed end drooped about an inch below the planer bed — enough to induce snipe at the trailing edge on every single pass. Once the extension tables were bolted on, the problem disappeared entirely.

But that’s my situation. Yours might be different.

If you’re running the DW735 on a sturdy, flat workbench that extends at least 16 to 18 inches beyond the planer on both sides, the extension tables are genuinely redundant. The bench surface does the same job. A friend of mine keeps his base DW735 bolted to a dedicated outfeed station he built from 3/4-inch Baltic birch — never needed the tables once. He bought them anyway as part of an X bundle, used them twice out of curiosity, and they’ve lived in a drawer ever since.

Job site use is a different story. Loading the planer into a truck bed, hauling it to a renovation or a client’s shop, setting it up on a folding table or a stack of lumber — the extension tables aren’t optional in that scenario. They’re the difference between consistent results and a pile of snipe-riddled boards you can’t use.

Home workshop with a dedicated setup: tables are a nice-to-have. Anywhere else: tables are essential. That’s the real filter, and it’s a pretty clean one.

The extra knife set is less situational. You will dull a set of knives — sooner than expected if you’re running figured wood or anything with silica content. A backup set in the drawer below the planer is useful every single time that moment arrives. Nobody has ever complained about having a spare set of blades on hand. That’s what makes the knife inclusion endearing to us practical-minded woodworkers — it’s not glamorous, it just solves a real problem before it becomes one.

The Verdict

The decision tree here is short. Mercifully short.

Buying new and the DW735X is within $80 of the base unit at your preferred retailer? Get the X. The math works in your favor, the accessories arrive bundled without a scavenger hunt, and you skip the mental accounting of “I should probably order those tables eventually.” Start with the complete package and move on with your life.

X premium is over $80 compared to the base unit? Price the accessories separately that same day. If the table set plus knives still costs more than the X premium, get the X. If somehow accessories are running cheap and you can beat the bundle price piecemeal — buy the base unit, order the accessories, pocket the difference.

Already own the DW735? Do not buy the X as an upgrade. That means paying full retail for an entire second planer to obtain roughly $80 in accessories — which is a bad trade by any measure. Buy the DW7351 table set and the DW7352 knife set individually. Around $80 to $100 total. You’ll have exactly the same configuration as an X owner, and the machine you already have is not inferior in any functional way whatsoever.

Three years in, my DW735X still cuts clean and flat on hardwoods — up to about 5/8-inch removal per pass without bogging. The two-speed gearbox earns its keep regularly: slower feed for figured grain, faster feed for rough dimensioning. Nothing about the base machine has ever let me down.

Just don’t let anyone convince you the X is a different or better planer. It’s the same planer in a different box. Whether the bundle is worth the premium is a $70 math problem — not a woodworking decision.