Hello and welcome Clarkiano - whats good and whats not so good about wet cutters:
- A cheapie cutter uses cheap components. That usually means a low powered motor, and a smaller cutting blade. That means you may struggle to cut harder and thicker tiles.
- Because the motors in professional cutters are higher powered, they will cut all day every day without grinding to a juddering halt. Bear in mind, that not many jobs require a lot of use of a wet cutter, but most stone tiles can only be cut with a wet cutter and so it will be used a lot.
- A cheap cutter will not have replaceable parts. Anything that goes wrong with a Rubi can always be repaired with readily available spare parts - but for the price of some Rubi parts, you could buy another plastic Plasplugs wet cutter!
- Rubi makes BL (basic line) cutters to target the DIY and casual tiler. The components are often plastic rather than metal, the motors are lower powered, and Rubi BL products are made in 3rd world countries whereas Rubi professional gear is made in Spain. Gauge how much use you want from your cutter before deciding what to buy.
- There are some very good cutters available at around £100 that are well built, and last well. The Vitrex Pro 750 is a good cutter, and the Briccolina is another good one.
- Whatever wet cutter you choose, budget to buy a decent quality diamond tile cutting wheel - expect to pay between £40 and £70 for a good quality cutting wheel.
The best adviceIcan give is to buy a cheap cutter (no more than £120) and buy a reasonable quality diamond cutting wheel for it (total cost now £170ish). When you find the cutter has had its day, then aim to upgrade to at least a Rubi ND200, or a DeWalt D24000. But most tilers still keep a small cheap wet cutter for smaller jobs.