Kitchen Blenders

Alder :

I recently purchased this mixture at a retail store. Before opening the box, I went to Amazon to see how it was being reviewed, and was somewhat concerned at all the bad reviews.

I nonetheless decided to open it, and have used it several times so far to make smoothies to good results.

Granted, I’ve only had it for a couple of weeks, so I could be disappointed in the future, but I did want to address my own experience about a few things that recurred in the reviews.

-One person said the jug has no pour spout. Perhaps Cuisinart have changed the design somewhat, because mine certainly has one, although a bit small. But overall, no problems pouring into glasses.

-Several people have mentioned that the blades just spin at the bottom and that in order to get them to actually blend things, you have to keep pushing things down with a spoon. This has completely not matched my experience. I followed the instructions to use the “liquefy” speed for smoothies. When using fresh fruit they were completely and smoothly liquefied within approximately 20 seconds. When I used frozen fruit it took a little longer (a couple of minutes). In both cases I didn’t need to use a spoon to push them down.

-I did learn after a couple of uses that it’s very important to make sure that the jug is pushed in all the way before you use it, because otherwise the plastic blade-spinning device may just spin in the air or may work but with tiny bits of plastic coming off it. When the jar was pushed all the way in, I had no problems with this. However, I am keeping a close eye on that plastic bit because it seems to be the cause of most problems here.

So overall to date I’m happy with my purchase. I gave it four stars because I’m not sure how it would react to really heavy-duty use and because I am concerned about the plastic blade-spinner per the reviews here. So far, however, it has worked perfectly to my satisfaction.

Vargas :

I purchased this same blender well over five years ago. My partner and I use it 5-6 days a week and usually one or two times a day making post work-out smoothies. This machine easily blends ice and large chunks of frozen fruit including large frozen strawberries with no difficulty. This blender worked flawlessly for all these years until the black spindle that rotates the blades in the container finally sheared off. Everything wears out eventually. Frankly, I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. The blender is very easy to clean with its smooth face and the glass jar managed hundreds of trips through a hot dishwasher. I just wished that I bought a second glass pitcher soon after my initial purchase. It would have been terrific to use one pitcher while the other was in the dishwasher. Considering the workout we gave this blender I feel it has held up beautifully and was definitely worth the price. I am going to replace this blender with the exact same model so I will finally get my second pitcher.

Tai :

Underpowered. This thing just does not perform. And now, after about a year of use, the cutting assembly is cracked. Replacement, with shipping, is about 1/3 the cost of a new blender. Here’s more junk for the land fill!

James :

I checked around at a lot of sites, even Cuisinart before buying this blender. The AVERAGE RETAIL PRICE IS $59.00, NOT $130.00 (No where on the planet is this blender selling for $130.00!)
You’re not saving anything when you’re already paying retail. Do they really think (or hope)that people are that gullible and will just impulse buy it under the guise that they’re getting some “great deal”?

Kaster :

I purchased this model in chrome based on brand name four years ago. We make a lot of frozen drinks, and the spout would never pour right, with liquid running down the side into the jar base. Then when you would pick it up to pour the next time, it would pour out of the base unexpectedly and make a drippy mess. You always had to hold a towel at the base with one hand when pouring (very inconvenient). Eventually the touchpad went out, and it was a relief to see it go. How sad that a poorly designed spout ruined an otherwise great product.

Atwater :

Finding this replacement carafe saved me the headache and expense of a new blender. Fair price for an excellent product.

Moller :

We received this as a wedding gift almost 3 years ago. I love the glass jar part of it but overall as a blender it really disapoints me. We mainly use it to make smoothies. It ALWAYS gets stuck… ALWAYS. Even if all we through in there is frozen berries, frozen yogurt and OJ. It simply is not strong enough for smoothies- hence why I only give it one star. It also failed to blend baby food to super smooth and also failed to finely chop slices of bread into breadcrumbs. We are currently shopping for a new blender that can make smoothies since that is the main reason why we even own a blender.

Bloks :

Like others on this thread, I ran into the same problem. The black plastic gears at the base just broke into many pieces. I saw the problem coming and tried to avoid it by ensuring that the blades were properly lubed and turned. To no avail. One day it just crumbled.

I am sticking with blenders with a metal coupler/gear assembly.

Roos :

Well, this blender got me too… I had forgotten about how initially disappointed I was that the “chrome” base was chrome-painted plastic, until recently reading all the reviews. I bought this blender based on the reviews 2 years ago (I guess it was still relatively new back then), the name brand, the look of the jar and keypad. I have been using it regularly only recently to make baby food and hummus, and it has already stopped working. I suspect it would have stopped working a lot sooner if I had been using it more regularly prior to now. I haven’t yet opened up the motor to see what is wrong with it, but I suspect it’s the broken plastic gearing mentioned in several reviews. The “on” button lights up but pressing any of the blend functions does nothing.

Incidentally, I was able to get hummus and baby food pretty smooth, but it did take a long time, as does blending ice drinks. You have to have enough liquid component in addition to the food solids to get the chunks to fall down to the blades and blend. Otherwise the blade just spins inside a self-created air pocket, and doesn’t blend anything. I think this is fairly typical, but from reading reviews on the Osterizer Beehive and Waring blenders, this is less of a problem.

Oh yes, after blending for awhile, one gets that smokey smell from the motor. But unfortunately, if you don’t blend for a while (2-3 minutes), you can’t arrive at creamy smooth - not even on the puree setting.

Prior to breaking this blender was only a mild disappointment. Now it’s a total disappointment.