Makita lists one laser measure and it holds a respectable 4.6. We took it out of our accuracy guide anyway, on the strength of two specific things owners report. Here is the reasoning, so you can decide whether you agree with it.
One unit. The LD050P, rated at 164 ft, holding 4.6 across roughly six hundred ratings. Makita is a major cordless platform with almost no presence in this category, which is worth knowing if you came here hoping to match the rest of a teal and black kit.
Two things, and the second is the one that decided it.
The display is not illuminated. In a finished, well lit room that is a non issue. In a basement, a loft, a crawl space, an unwired new build or anywhere at dusk, you are reading a number you cannot see, on a tool bought specifically to save you fumbling with a tape in exactly those places.
Every competing unit at this price has a backlit screen and most now have colour. It is the single most visible way this tool shows its age.
The phrasing was that they could not get an accurate measure, ever. Not that it drifted, not that it struggled with a particular surface, but that they never got a reading they could rely on.
One report is one report, and 4.6 across six hundred ratings says most owners are satisfied. What made it disqualifying in context is where we were about to place it. It was slotted into our guide to the most accurate laser measures, a page whose entire ranking axis is how tightly a unit holds a measurement. A first hand account of a unit that never measured accurately is not something that page can carry, whatever the average says.
So it came out of that guide. It has not been placed in another one, because the backlight problem rules it out of the indoor and low light use cases where a 164 ft red beam unit would otherwise belong.
Most LD050P owners are happy with it. If you already own one and it works for you, nothing here suggests otherwise. Our position is about which product we send a stranger to when they ask for the most accurate option, and on that question a no backlight display and an unresolved accuracy account are enough to send them elsewhere.
It is worth saying plainly that brand matching buys you nothing here. A laser measure shares no battery, no charger and no platform with your cordless tools. It takes AAA cells and lives in a pocket. The only benefit of matching colours is that it is easy to spot in a bag.
That is a genuinely small benefit against a display you cannot read in a crawl space, so we would spend the money on the tool rather than the badge.
The Bosch GLM165-40 covers 165 ft, displays sixteenths of an inch, has a backlit colour display and carries nearly six thousand ratings at 4.7. It is the most reviewed laser measure we have looked at anywhere. The full Bosch range is compared here.
Leica's Disto X3 and D5 hold roughly a millimetre, the tightest tolerance we cover. Our accuracy guide ranks by stated tolerance and also explains why that specification is usually the smallest error in your measurement, which is worth reading before you spend on it.
This is the specific gap the LD050P leaves. Any Bosch Blaze unit has a backlit colour screen, and a green beam unit like the GLM165-25G also solves the separate problem of finding the dot on a dark surface. Green beam options are covered here.
Nothing Makita sells in this category is sealed or drop rated. Our contractors guide ranks on what survives rather than what measures, because the screen, the battery door and the battery contacts are what actually retire these tools.
If you have not settled on a unit yet, the laser measures we recommend are gathered on our front page, eight of them, each with the reason it is there.