Home Depot Tool Refund - Your Opinion
 

Ridgid tools have a newer 18V battery.

The newer ones say "Hyper" Lithium Ion battery where the old ones did not have this Hyper label.

Is this a new technology or same thing under different labels? Does it really work better? Is it the same "guts" inside?

Battery technology improves all the time but you could be right and this is just marketing through label changes. All you can do is compare the battery specs.