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Well I've also just got hold of Makita's baby 18V cordless rear-handle saw, the DUC357. It is not advertised as having an inertia brake by Makita UK but I did find Makita Canada mention on their product page that it has one. Low and behold I was easily able to get the brake to come on with the nose-drop test for the DUC357. Definitely some mixed messages from the manufacturers.

One thing I've noticed is several Makita cordless and corded saws seem to share the same toolless tensioning system, but this is the only Husqvarna I've seen with it

Wow that is a lot of responses, thank you. This is clearly a lively forum! Sorry for not coming back sooner myself. So the saw I have at the moment is the Makita UC4051A, which is a 2000 W mains-powered saw with a 16" bar. It's advertised in the Makita brochure as having an inertia brake but not on their website... so I asked their customer services and they said the brake was "manual only". So clearly Makita are confused about their own product even. I can confirm that this saw has the physical metal band that tightens around a drum upon engaging the manual brake using the front hand guard (so I believe similar to a petrol saw in that sense). Perhaps I need to be more "violent" in my nose-drop test, as has been suggested. I was already being considerably more violent than the man in the video though! The front hand guard itself doesn't seem to be weighted, so I presume there would be some internal weights to capture the inertial forces? Cutting the electric does not stop the saw instantly, although most electric saws seem to have what they call an "electronic brake" or a "rundown brake" as well. This seems to apply a bit of reverse current to bring the chain to a stop when the trigger is released. This does not happen instantly though, it takes about 1 second. I don't think it's meant for kickback protection, just general safety and usability; a lot of modern power tools have this feature. P.S. The Makita UC4051A looks identical to the Husqvarna 420EL (Husqvarna's only mains-powered chainsaw). I've also contacted Husqvarna and they say the the 420EL has an inertia brake and doing the nose drop test should activate it. I'm tempted to return the Makita and get the Husqvarna but I'm damn as near convinced they are actually the same saw rebranded one way or the other (Husqvarna ignored my question when I asked them if that was the case 😆)

I've bought an electric chainsaw which the manufacturer advertises as having an inertia brake, however, I cannot get the brake to activate using the nose-drop test as demonstrated in this video. In my test, the bar just hits the wood without the brake clicking on. How hard does it need to hit to activate..? One thing to note... as I want to return the saw I've bought if I can't verify it has this safety feature, I have conducted the test without fitting the chain, so just a bare bar. As far as I can figure, this won't affect the inertial forces so if an inertia brake was present it should be working. I've also been told that all chainsaws must have inertia brakes by law, but I'm not sure that is the case. I have got the sense that a lot of people, manufacturers included in some instances, might be wrongly using the term "inertia brake" just to describe a regular chain brake. Thanks in advance for any help.