Kitchen Blenders

Ignacio :

The smartpower duet blender is working out very well for me. It makes a wonderful smoothie and makes very short work of chopping up veggies as well. Easy to clean and easy to use. I am very satisfied with its performance.

Shortell :

I loved this combination food processor-blender. It did all the work I needed, it was easy to switch out the different parts of the unit, and easy to wash and clean.

I bought the unit in late 2004, and used it until late 2008, so it lasted for 4 years.

Unfortunately, the warranty is only for 3 years and the motor burned appears to have burnt out. I would expect a blender that costs this much to last much longer especially given that I did not use it all that frequently.

For the first couple years, it performed very well, then it started to have trouble crushing frozen fruit, let alone ice. Then one day it stopped working altogether.

I may try to take it to a local repair shop, but I’m hesitant to spend the time and money to ship it off to the cuisinart repair when they are unable to give me a quote for the cost of the repair.

Edgely :

I wasn’t thrilled with this blender’s user interface (the buttons are kind of unintuitive), but I could live with it. And it actually is a nice solid glass blender, which is good because I often blend hot soups - so heatproof glass is a major plus. Unfortunately the base is nowhere near as solid. It’s almost comical that Cuisinart used such a cheap, easily cracked, plastic base with such a diesel pitcher.

The problem is that if you tighten the glass pitcher onto the base with too much torque, you’ll end up with a hairline crack in the base where it threads onto the pitcher. The entire base is just one large brittle piece of hard plastic. If they had used rubber or more-flexible plastic material, then this crack wouldn’t happen. It’s made from the kind of plastic that if you put it in the freezer for a day, took it out, and dropped it on the floor, would shatter into a hundred pieces. It just makes no sense that such an otherwise solid blender would have such a cheap failure point.

Vago :

My primary use for a blender is frozen drinks and smoothies. I went through 3 blenders before finding this one. Frozen fruit is no problem for this guy. Ice crushing is a breeze and I use ice right from my freezer. Yes, it is noisy but I expect a 600 watt motor to be noisy. And I agree the pouring is sometimes an issue, I just pour out the corner of the jug.
Cleaning is no problem, fill the empty jar with a little warm water, a drop or two of dish soap and blend. Then use the warm soapy water to clean the outside. The key is too not let food or ingredients dry up on it.
I wouldn’t trade it for anything and have purchased another one for my step-daughter and her family. Love my blender!

Tarbet :

Today I tossed my SmartPower Premier in the trash. It works the same way it did when I bought it… which is why I threw it out.

The last straw was the simple exercise of trying to blend some carrots. I peeled three carrots, cut them in thirds, put them in the blender with a cup of water, fought with the obtuse controls for a moment, and then hit “blend”. The machine was incapable of turning those three carrots in to mush.

Lost of noise, burning rubber smell, splatter… I shook it, pushed the carrots down repeatedly, cut them up smaller, added more water… nothing. It simply doesn’t work like a normal blender — I honestly don’t know what the thing is supposed to do.

Actually, I think the simple answer is that this machine is at it’s “best” blending drinks — that is — things that have lots of liquid. Even in these cases, it takes a surprisingly long time to blend, and the result isn’t very even.

Pros:
– Large capacity
– Motor seems powerful

Cons:
– Yes, as has been said countless times, the thing smells like burning rubber.
– Bizarre controls… why do you have to push multiple buttons to activate this blender? Turning on pulse takes like four button presses
– 2 speeds — yup, when it’s all said and done, there are two speeds, and they are: very fast, and super very hyper fast
– El-Cheapo plastic blender base
– A lot of people have mentioned how hard it is to pour out of the pitcher, and I agree, and I’d also add that the shape of the pitcher around the blades is inconvenient.
– EXPENSIVE

Hutcheson :

I was all excited about recieving this blender for a birthday present & when after buying all these ingredients to make hummus, I started mixing it in the blender & in 10 minutes I smelled the smell of a burnt out motor & sure enough it died then & there.I don’t know if I’ll even bother getting another blender cause I had another slightly cheaper one recently made by Proctor Silex that I got 2 full uses out of it before that one died so that assures me that today’s quality is crap compared to old school.The Kitchen my partents had lasted for decades!Don’t throw away reciept & packing box if you buy this blender!!!