Review on Makita DFJ405ZM Resistant Jacket Medium by Jesus Gallagher

So when I heard about this jacket, I was immediately intrigued. I work a lot on my car in an air conditioned garage and this seemed like the perfect solution to work in in the summer. That's when the first serious "problem" appeared - the price. $200 is usually BIG, especially for such a unique item that people have no experience with. Don't get me wrong, the quality is there for the most part, but I really don't understand how it costs $200 to add two vents to a jacket. So I bought a generic fan jacket from another brand for $50 just to see a) the idea made sense (it does) b) I could save a bunch of money by buying something like a fake. Well, while the cheap jacket proved to me that the idea wasn't a bad one, it had two fatal flaws. While the cheap jacket actually had 4 fans, they were underpowered and the layout was pretty terrible (2 front, 2 back versus 1 on each side of the Makita). Overall I really liked the idea/jacket so I thought the hell with it and returned the cheap one to buy a Makita. The Makita is now dramatically higher quality (as it should be 4x more expensive) and most importantly the fans were significantly more powerful without being unbearably loud. I also really like the battery connector that comes with the jacket as you can use it to charge your USB device which is a nice plus. However, depending on what size battery you're putting there, it can be a little awkward to carry around since you're essentially putting it in your front pocket. I randomly look at people I don't know, I unconsciously wear it in public. The Makita is a lot more refined and generally pretty "low profile", but once you have it, people will know about it, and at least I felt a little silly wearing it. If you wear this to a construction site, you'll end up with a TON of crap (I didn't, but I can guarantee it). The other "problem" I had with its appearance was that it's white/grey, has all sorts of dirt/grease etc on it like crazy, and it's really difficult to keep it relatively clean. Now for the cooling. First, while I haven't tested this in very hot conditions in the sun, I VERY doubt it will help at all in a very sunny situation with an ambient temperature of 100 F+. While you have airflow when it's hotter than your skin temp, you don't get actual cooling and at best can trick your brain a little or get a little evaporative cooling from your sweat. But if you're in the same situation as me where the outside temperature is 85C and you're inside, that could be great. However, this brings me to the last issue I had and the reason I had to return it. I don't know if I got lucky but after about 5 days of ownership the fans started rumbling and I have absolutely no idea why. I tried a few ways to get them to stop and I know I didn't do anything to make them rattle, but the noise was driving me nuts. And for $200 it wasn't a problem I wanted to put up with so I had to return it with regret. May I recommend you? it depends. If you can somehow get it for $100-$125 (which I think should be MSRP), I think overall it's worth a shot. As long as you don't expect it to be conditioner on a jacket, because it's not. It's also a bit baggy (it has to be for airflow) so if you're at risk of snagging on something I wouldn't take it. I really like this idea and I hope Makita will continue to improve it. But they really need to lower the price.