Blender Reviews

Previously owned [money] Osterizer blender for 10 years which worked just as well as this Cuisinart blender. Shortly after the warranty expired but only after 15 uses, the clutch -- which is plastic -- broke. Without the clutch, the machine is inoperable. When I called Cuisinart to inquire into repairing this product, they told me I would have to mail the blender base (motor is heavy!) and then, only after receipt they would estimate the cost of fixing the machine. When I asked for the average cost of repair, the answer was at least [money]. In other words, for the cost of buying a new Osterizer, I could pay for another plastic clutch to be installed. No thank you. A friend of mine who owned a Cuisinart blender had the same thing happen. She now owns a KitchenAid blender and is very happy with it.

I have Cuisinart products I like, but this was a disappointment. The plastic bottom of the container holds the blade in place, and sits on the rubber rotor on the top of the chrome base. However, both the bottom of the blade and the top of the base (where the motor is) have teeth which must mesh when you insert the top on the baase of the machine. It takes a few tries to make this work every time you replace the top on the base. What a pain.
I make banana shakes, and this machine leaves chunks of banana! It takes several tries, and even then does not always complete the job.
When I try to chop things llike nuts or bread crumbs, they tend to collect in the narrow bottom around the blade and get gummy instead of chopping. I never had this problem with my old Waring.
Plastic parts have a cheap feel. Next time - and I'm sure there will have to a next time with this machine - I'll get a good American made Waring. I don't find a use for the multiple speeds. at all.

just received this item as a gift from my folks and i got to tell you it's by far the most efficient gift i've gotten in a long while. it's very durable, extremely easy to work and handle (just read the directions, folks) , simple to clean and best of all, makes your drinks, smoothies, soups, etc. come out perfect.

i recommend this one to anybody that loves smoothies and the such but don't like spending the $3+ for one every time they go out. trust me, you'll like your own better anyway.

I bought this "Smoothie Bar Blender and Server" and used it about 15 times before the plastic dispenser cracked making the whole thing unuseable. I was very careful with it, washing it by hand - not putting it in the dishwasher - because I thought it looked fragile (cheap) when I first opened the box. Don't waste your money on this item.

You know that infomercial for these things (The one where they are knocking the blender)? That guy in the infomercial is way too excited about the spigot. I have had this thing for almost two months and I haven't used that thing once. It is actually a pain(...)to clean it out, even though I don't use it. I make a lot of smoothies and protein shakes and both are WAY to thick to get through that little spigot.

The good:
Heavy blades.
700 watt motor.
And if you're going to use the spigot, there is actually pretty good clearence from the drip plate.

"The good" presupposes a "bad", and there really isn't anything bad about it other than the minor difficulty of cleaning out the spigot. It works as an awesome blender, but if you want to make anything thicker than water, a blender is all that it is.

I've had this machine for about a week, and it's getting the job done. This is my second smoothie blender. The first (another brand) gave out rather quickly. At $30 if this one dies in two months I'll still feel like I got my money's worth.

Strong points:
Extremely good price.
Heavy blades.
A wide pitcher facilitates an even mix with odd shaped ingredients.
Strong 700 watt motor.
The spigot is high enough from the drip plate to allow a 24oz bar glass under it.

Weak points:
The power buttons are on the side, and not in a recessed area. I was pushing the machine to the back of the kitchen counter and bumped the pulse switch against a bowl, spinning the blades and sending the stir stick flying across the room.
The drip tray screen vibrates off while the machine is running. The little clips that are meant to hold it just don't get the job done.
The spigot is a little narrow making it very slow to pour a thick beverage. More often than not, I just pour from the pitcher mouth.

So, there you have it. Not perfect, but a fantastic value for $30. Just be careful of those darn buttons!

I bought this blender a couple of years ago, and still use it because its all I've got. I want to upgrade! I use it about once every 2 weeks. It is fine for the most basic uses, but honestly all those buttons are joke - horrible to keep clean, and there is no difference between any of the speeds. And the food doesn't drop down properly, only the stuff at the bottom gets blended. And if there isn't lots of liquid in there, it doesn't blend at all. I would not recommend it to anyone.

My parents still have an Oster blender that's 30 years old and still works perfectly. But Oster blenders nowadays come with cheap motors that smoke the first time they run for more than 15 seconds and burn out on either the first or second batch of daquiries. Maybe it's because Osters are now made in Mexico; I don't know. What I do know is that I will never waste good money on an Oster blender again. The most recent replacement blender Oster sent me burned out five minutes ago, and you can bet I'm p.o.'d. I don't want another replacement - I want my money back.

This is the best blender I have ever purchased. AND it is not noisy at all.

I have owned this blender for over a year and have only used it a few times. Now it can't be used because the sensors cannot detect the jar sitting on the base. Because of Touch-Pad Controls With LCD Memory Screen it is able to say that it "needs an attatchment on the base" and there is nothing you can do about it because it is not detecting the jar and you have no access to the Touchpad button options. At least, with a cheap twenty dollar blender, it would blend as long as the buttons are depressed. I now own an expensive, useless blender!

We absolutely loved this gadget, it was the perfect blender and food processor,so easy to use and efficient, until it began leaking a bit out of the base. Now with each use the leaking has gotten worse, and when my husband went to make a shake the other night, more than half of it ended up on the counter. We have checked and re-checked the gasket seal, but it seems that that gasket has become loose and no longer makes a snug fit. Maybe only ours has this issue, because otherwise, we thought it was a great buy.

When I first got this thing, I was totally in love with it. It's super powerful, makes snow out of ice, whips up the most watery protein shakes into a fluffy delight, makes salsa without turning it into mush, grinds veggies into smooth baby food.

Then, after a few trips through the dishwasher, the "dishwasher safe" jar started leaking. I tried and tried to get it to stop, replaced the gasket over and over and the problem just keeps getting worse. So my advice is handwash this the jar, blade and gasket if you don't want to have this pesky problem.

Also, sometimes, when I turn it on, the LED doesn't register, so I have to turn it off and then back on to get it to work.

On top of it, the blade started to rust a little. I have contacted their customer service and am waiting to see if and how they are willing to resolve the issue. (Film at eleven.)

In summary, I really really want to like this blender because of it's powerful and intutitive capabilities, but fundamental quality flaws as described above keep me from giving it a five-star review.

I have owned this blender for 6 months. I have used it to blend diet drinks and milkshakes. I used it today to make a thick milkshake and it died on me. I have bought much cheaper blenders in the past and they have outlasted this blender by far. I plan to stick with the cheaper blenders from now on.

We couldn't find the rubber gasket to replace in our old blender, so we requested and got this for one Christmas. It matched our kitchen, but doesn't match up to the old blender. It's not good at making pesto or other heavier sauces. It's good for whipping up drinks, but so far, not much else. I just tried to make a chocolate frosting, and the Joy of Cooking says you can do it in a blender, but I had to put it in a bowl and hand whip it. Form over function. Also, difficult to clean.

I bought one as a birthday present for myself three years ago. It's almost exactly the ones my grandmother and mother got rid of to replace with cheap plastic ones--they thought it was too heavy. They had theirs for years, used them a lot, and they were still working just fine when they replaced them. I have my grandmother's Waring Blender Cookbook that came with hers when she got it after WWII. Cool.

It will do everything you want it to except it's not too hot at crushing large ice cubes. I have never experienced any problems with the motor. It's also easy to clean if you fill it 1/4 full of water, a couple of drops of detergent, and blend. I have used it for gazpacho, daquiris, milkshakes, salvaging lumpy gravy, juicing all kinds of fruit (I don't even peel oranges)and vegetables, etc.

Just don't drop that heavy glass container on your foot!

As for the deliver time.. its came sooner that expected.
As i opened the box I began to recall whether or not i order the correct item.. did i mistakenly order a jack hammer? It sure looks like a jack hammer ( its about a foot long and weighs aboutr 20 pounds) or something a construction man could use. So if you dont feel like pumping iron to be able to use this " hand blender" i suggest you shop around for hand blender that are actually small enough for your hand to handle.

i totally disagree with the above person, as stated it is about four pounds. it weighs that much because if it weighed any less it wouldnt have the power to actually work. I make a lot of baked items, such as pound cakes, and muffins. it works like a dream. especially if you want to use it while you are also using a big mixer. and it's great for small jobs too, like slim fast milkshakes.

We received our blender as a X-mas gift in 2001. We love the Michael Graves designs and have the toaster and coffee maker. The blender looked great and we fired it up to make margaritas. The blender stopped working before they were done. We took it back and Target happily replaced it. We had a party and used it heavily to create margaritas. No problem. Skip forward a year and the blender sat idle until another margarita party. Guess what?? Another dead blender! My warranty is expired and all I have is a very cool looking blender that doesn't work. I can understand one dud, but we got two duds. My advice is to buy another brand!! I think they have redesigned the MG design (it looks different, anyways), and I hope it has more ice handling power!! If Michael Graves is a fan of the frozen drink, hopefully he has redesigned it to handle ICE.

I got mine as a house warming gift when i moved into my first new place in November and i love it. It handles ice better than any othe blenders i've ever used. I never even find any chunks of ice in the bottom when im done. I'm looking forward to adding other MG products to my gift registry fot my wedding next year!

I've had this blender for about 2 years and I'm not too pleased. The thread is gone and the pitcher keeps wobbling on the base. It's good for smoothies and real soft food, but don't ask it to blend much else. It only has 2 speeds, it's heavy and a pain to clean. Don't let the looks and price deceive you. It's not worth the money.

My kitchenaid ultra-something blender died on me after 3 years of spotty usage. I bought this blender (the copper version actually) from overstock because of the good ratings it had on some other site. This blender is loud but boy, does it blend & grind! The blade is extremely sharp and this blender makes quick work of things that used to take me 15 minutes - half-an-hour to grind (like soaked rice) on the kitchenaid. The nice thing also is that the blade reaches further down and mixes up the contents pretty well. Another hugely important thing is that whereas the kitchenaid would struggle and heat up during operation and had to be rested periodically so the contents would not heat up also, this blender effectively separates the jar thermally from the base. Your food won't get cooked even as it's blended. The base hardly warmed up, however. The 500 W power is more efficiently used compared to the 600 W of the kitchenaid.
It's very simple to operate with no bells and whistles. The degree of blending/grinding is directly related to the duration so you don't have multiple buttons and lights to deal with.
One negative is that the warranty is still only a year. Wish it were longer. I just got this & hope it lasts.

I had this blender for maybe a year and used it infrequently. If you take it apart to wash it is very hard to put back together. It stripped when I tried to make frozen margaritas. Would not recommend.

I own the previous version of this blender. It worked great for 15 months, then the rubber gear that drives the blades shredded. Poof, game over. I dont know why I didnt notice it before, but the thing is basically designed to fail -- it's not if, it's when. Krups has no customer service to speak of "we leave support to our authorized service outlets." Hmmmm. Gotta love a company that wont directly support it's product. So, I called 'authorized service center' after 'authorized service center'. All were out of stock on this part, quoting 3 to 4 weeks to get one in. Finally I found a place in Arizona that had a couple, so I ordered two ($6 each plus shipping.)

These things will clearly fail. If Krups had put a couple extra in the box, I wouldnt be so upset, but now my blender is in rehab till the parts arrive, plus I've spent an extra $20 for parts for an already-expensice blender. For that $20 I could have bought a used blender that would probably last longer. And you know that some day Krups will stop making the part, and that will be that. The only thing that makes me feel better is the knowlege that I never have to buy another Krups product again.

PS: I understand that this new version of the product has precisely the same rubber gear.

Just want to confirm what one of the other reviewers said. The rubber gear in the base will eventually strip (although mine lasted four years). Otherwise it's a great blender, especially for smoothies.

The title says it all. I used it once to make smoothies. I made 2 pitchers, and decided to stop after smelling and seeing smoke flowing out of the back of the base. Hopefully I will be able to find a more sturdy replacement.

I used this 5 times. Twice I made milk shakes and it would not chop up the ice cream completely. Three times I made smoothies and I had banana, peach chunks that never got completely chopped up. The more I mixed the warmer the shakes & smoothies got, yuck. To add insult to injury it leaked. I took it back and got an Oster, and am crossing my fingers.

My husband and I bought this blender a month ago and use it every morning to make fresh fruit smoothies.
He drinks his right away and I take mine to go with me on my long drive to work.
The travel cup works out perfectly for me.
I love this blender!