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Bosch Professional GTS 635-216 review

Bosch’s compact site saw: lighter than the class, sensibly guarded, and built around a blade small enough to limit what it can rip.

The end of it The one to buy if the saw has to be carried. The one to skip if it lives in one place, where the same money buys more blade.

Every figure is a manufacturer specification, read off the listing itself, and the judgments are ours — drawn from how the specification behaves in this class of machine and from what long-term owners consistently report. Where a figure is missing, we say so rather than fill it in.

What the specification says

216 mm (8.50 in) blade on a 30 mm (1.18 in) arbor, 1,600 W, and a self-closing blade guard described by Bosch as part of the safety package alongside the safety switch and the lightweight construction.

The trade this saw makes

Every compact site saw trades cut height and table area for the ability to be picked up. The GTS 635-216 makes that trade explicitly: a 216 mm (8.50 in) blade instead of a 250 or 254, and a smaller table than the stationary machines further down this page.

Whether that is the right trade depends on one question you can answer in a second — does the saw move? If it lives in a garage and never leaves, you are paying for portability you will never use and giving up capacity you will. If it goes into a van, none of the stationary saws here are in the running.

The guard is the underrated part

A self-closing guard matters more than it sounds. Guards get removed because they are in the way of a specific cut, and the ones that are awkward to refit stay off. A guard that drops back into place on its own survives the second week, and a saw that still has its guard in year three is a meaningfully safer machine than one with better paper specifications and a guard in a drawer.

Availability

Catalogued and unsold: the American Amazon shop lists the reference with nobody behind it.

Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.

What we could not check

Fence parallelism under load, and the actual proportion of dust captured. Bosch publishes an extraction port but not a capture figure, and no manufacturer in this category does.

The good side, and the catch

Strengths

  • Light enough to be carried by one person, which decides whether a site saw gets used
  • Self-closing guard — the guard that is still fitted a year later is the one that does not need removing
  • 30 mm (1.18 in) bore, so European blades fit without a reducer

Compromises

  • 216 mm (8.50 in) blade caps cut height well below a 250 mm (9.84 in) machine
  • Compact saws trade table area for portability, and large panels need outfeed support
  • The US listing is an import rather than local distribution — the price shows it

Specifications

Blade diameter216 mm (8.50 in)
Blade bore30 mm (1.18 in)
Motor1,600 W
GuardingSelf-closing blade guard, safety switch (manufacturer description)
Amazon referenceB07R3X3MQM (identical on 6 markets)
EAN3165140947008

What comes up most often

Is 216 mm (8.50 in) enough?

For everything up to about 65–70 mm (2.56 to 2.76 in) in one pass, yes — which covers sheet goods, trim, and most softwood framing on edge. It is not enough to rip a 100 mm (3.94 in) oak blank, and no accessory changes that. Blade diameter is the one specification on a table saw you cannot upgrade.

Why does the blade bore matter?

Because European blades are made with a 30 mm (1.18 in) center hole and much of the rest of the world is not. A saw with a 30 mm (1.18 in) arbor takes them directly; anything else needs a reducer ring, which is one more part to lose and one more source of runout.

Where this model is listed

A listing is not an offer: the reference exists on these stores, availability changes daily.

  • France
  • Germany
  • Italy
  • Spain
  • United Kingdom
  • United States

Our score

7.4/ 10

The one to buy if the saw has to be carried. The one to skip if it lives in one place, where the same money buys more blade.

Who buys this one, among woodworking machines

Trim, second-fix and repeated small rips, where the saw has to move between rooms or sites

Blades and parts stated to fit

Listed because the blade or part names this saw.

Sources

Specifications: the manufacturer sheet for woodworking machines and the matching Amazon product page. Prices and availability: Keepa. Every figure on this page names its source.

How we assess these woodworking machines

Prices quoted in these summaries are dated readings. The live price is shown next to each product.