Best Blender for Smoothies, Ice, and More — Buying Guide 2023

The smooth­ie has become a syn­onym for a healthy lifestyle term in recent years. No won­der ” What is the best blender for smooth­ies?” is a per­sis­tent ques­tion many con­sumers look for answers to online.

In fact, almost any blender, even the immer­sion one, can make a smooth­ie. When choos­ing the best blender for smooth­ies, the most crit­i­cal para­me­ter to con­sid­er is the ingre­di­ents you will process with your blenders, such as greens, frozen fruits, ice, pro­tein pow­der, berries, etc. The qual­i­ty of the smooth­ie you expect from your machine. The mon­ey you are ready to pay for the blender is also a sig­nif­i­cant para­me­ter. As you may expect, this gad­get’s price is often direct­ly cor­re­lat­ed with the qual­i­ty of the drinks it produces.

Hard­ly sur­pris­ing­ly, the typ­i­cal con­sumer unfa­mil­iar with the blender indus­try may quick­ly become lost in the mul­ti­tude of avail­able gad­gets and the abun­dance of adver­tis­ing the cur­rent mar­ket offers. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, online resources are full of mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion about the sub­ject; most resources that claim to review the best blenders for smooth­ies (and oth­er pur­pos­es) do not do prop­er research. They are expect­ed to ran­dom­ly pick up a dozen top retail­ers’ best­sellers and present them as the ‘so-called’ best blenders on the mar­ket. And many of these reviews are often rewrit­ten from oth­er sim­i­lar igno­rant reviews.

How We Nominated the Best Blender for Smoothie

First, we will out­line the typ­i­cal blender cat­e­gories and clar­i­fy what func­tion­al­i­ty or range of tasks each blender cat­e­go­ry can per­form, the qual­i­ty of the smooth­ies and oth­er recipes it can accom­plish, and the price and dura­bil­i­ty you may expect from a par­tic­u­lar gad­get cat­e­go­ry. So, you will be able to select the best blender for your own needs con­cern­ing the func­tions it can per­form and the price it is avail­able on the market.

Essen­tial­ly, there are 3 major types of blenders present on the market:

1) The High-End/­Com­mer­cial Type Blender for Home Use;

2) The Mid-Range Blenders;

3) Low-Range/Ba­sic Blenders.

How­ev­er, ven­ture­some Chi­nese man­u­fac­tur­ers made their cor­rec­tion to the clas­sic blender mar­ket. For exam­ple, they are respon­si­ble for intro­duc­ing Per­son­al Blenders and High-End Blender Knock­offs that rep­re­sent a cheap­er blender’s price segment.

In this arti­cle, you will find com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion about the types of blenders and their func­tion­al­i­ty, so we hope you will be able to make your own deci­sion and select the blender that best suits your needs.

Dis­clo­sure: As an Ama­zon Asso­ciate, we may earn an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion for pur­chas­es you make when using the links on this page.

High-End Blenders

High-end or com­mer­cial-type blenders for home use are undoubt­ed­ly the best for mak­ing smooth­ies, and they rep­re­sent a bench­mark for what the true smooth­ie should be. They make the smoothest smooth­ies from any ingre­di­ents — greens, berry seeds, ice, tough ingre­di­ents like chia seed, and can pul­ver­ize even avo­ca­do seed. In addi­tion, these machines can micronize the ingre­di­ents to the enzyme lev­el to deliv­er extra health ben­e­fits when consumed.

These blenders were born in the com­mer­cial envi­ron­ment when the Vita­mix, War­ing, and Blendtec com­pa­nies released their first com­mer­cial types of blenders for home use.  The High-End blenders usu­al­ly fea­ture a very pow­er­ful motor, an auto­mat­ic shut-off motor pro­tec­tion sys­tem, the abil­i­ty to per­form mul­ti­ple tasks, and the dura­bil­i­ty of the machine.

It should be men­tioned that the high-pow­er motor is not the major rea­son why High-End gad­gets can per­form so well. Oth­er engi­neered secrets must make these machines such as excel­lent per­form­ers. For exam­ple, a few Nin­ja blenders have even more pow­er­ful motors than Vita­mix machines, but they can­not show com­pa­ra­ble Vita­mix blend­ing results.

In addi­tion to mak­ing per­fect smooth­ies, true High-end blenders can per­form a range of oth­er tasks so that you can replace them with a high-end blender and a few kitchen appli­ances. For exam­ple, these gad­gets can process “whole juice,” make hot soup, heat it with fric­tion and replace soup, make ice creams or frozen yogurt, and replace the ice cream mak­er; they can eas­i­ly grind any grains into flour and replace the flour mak­er and grinder. These machines are even able to knead the dough.

High-end blenders are expen­sive, usu­al­ly between $200 and $900. How­ev­er, you will get a very durable and well-made machine (which may serve you for over 15–20 years) with a very extend­ed war­ran­ty and help­ful cus­tomer ser­vice that will eas­i­ly replace a few appli­ances in your kitchen.

Best Vitamix Blenders for Smoothie

Vita­mix is one of the old­est blender man­u­fac­tur­ers on the mar­ket, and over 13 mod­els for home use rep­re­sent it. Some of them, such as the Ascent A3500, have a few lat­est tech­nol­o­gy fea­tures and a selec­tion of oth­er “bells and whis­tles,” while a few mod­els, such as the Vita­mix Explo­ri­an or 5200, tar­get con­sumers on a bud­get. How­ev­er, bud­get blenders have few­er fea­tures than most advanced mod­els. Still, they are able to per­form pre­cise­ly all func­tions and exact­ly at the same qual­i­ty lev­el as the most advanced blenders.

Vitamix A3500 Ascent Blender — The Top-of-the-Line Vitamix Model

The A3500 is the lat­est and most advanced Vita­mix blender. Although it comes with the same 2.2HP (1440 Watts) motor as the Clas­sis G‑series Vita­mix mod­els, it has an entire­ly new exte­ri­or design and a few new tech­nol­o­gy features.

Func­tion­al­i­ty: The blender per­forms all the stan­dard range of Vita­mix tasks, such as:

• Process the smoothest Smooth­ie, includ­ing Green ones;
• Makes “Whole” juice;
• Crush­es ice and frozen fruit and veg­eta­bles; pre­pares frozen desserts;
• Makes Nut and Soy milk;
• Purees per­fect hum­mus, pesto, and a vari­ety of spreads and dips;
• Han­dles hot ingre­di­ents and makes hot soup, heat­ing it via fric­tion from cold;
• Makes silky smooth Nut butter;
• Mills all types of grains and beans into flour;
• Grinds spices and cof­fee beans;
• Makes Dough and batter.

Con­tain­er and Blades: This mod­el comes with a stan­dard Vita­mix 64 oz—Tritan copoly­ester low-pro­file con­tain­er with stan­dard semi-dull inbuilt blades. How­ev­er, the con­tain­er comes with Self-Detect tech­nol­o­gy that rec­og­nizes the type of con­tain­er placed on the base unit and adjusts the blend­ing set­tings accordingly.

Tam­per: As a typ­i­cal Vita­mix blender, it is equipped with a tamper.

Con­trol Pan­el: It comes with state of the art capac­i­tive touch­screen con­trol pan­el that includes a dig­i­tal dial knob that reg­u­lates 10 speeds, 5 pre-set pro­grams (Smooth­ies, Frozen Desserts, Hot Soups, Dips/Spreads, and Self-Clean­ing), and a pro­gram­ma­ble timer.

Using and Clean­ing: The blender is very easy to assemble/disassemble and use. It comes with inbuilt blades and requires only fill­ing the jar with ingre­di­ents, and it is ready to blend. The con­trol pan­el is very intu­itive to use.

All parts are dish­wash­er safe; how­ev­er, the self-clean­ing pro­ce­dure is preferable.

Per­fect Blend App: The A3500 blender is equipped with Blue­tooth tech­nol­o­gy that allows pro­gram the blender with 17 extra pre-set pro­grams and uses over 500 recipes with Per­fect Scales at pre­cise volumes.

Extra Acces­sories: The Vita­mix sells an array of extra acces­sories com­pat­i­ble with the A3500 machine as a sin­gle-serve attach­ment and small bowls for grind­ing and very small recipes, 48 oz. Wet and Dry con­tain­ers, Aer Disc Con­tain­er, Smart Scales that go with the Best App, and others.

War­ran­ty: This mod­el comes with an out­stand­ing 10-year Full War­ran­ty and is the best in the indus­try in Cus­tomer Service.

Sum­ma­ry: Although the Vita­mix A3500 blender is very expen­sive, it is worth every pen­ny. It will not only replace a few of your kitchen appli­ances but also will serve you for many years, often much longer than even 10 10-year war­ran­ty peri­od. Besides, this A3500 mod­el is equipped with an array of new tech­nol­o­gy fea­tures that make this gad­get tru­ly the most advanced blender on the market.

Vita­mix A3500 Ascent Blender via Amazon

Vitamix E320 and E310 Explorian Blenders — The Budget Vitamix Option

The Vita­mix Explo­ri­an blender comes in two mod­els, E310 and E320. The blenders fea­ture a pow­er­ful 2.2HP (1440 Watts) motor, durable all-met­al pow­er train, and gear strip­ping. The Explo­ri­an is the bud­get Vita­mix blender and was designed as the cheap­est entry Vita­mix model.

Func­tion­al­i­ty: The gad­get is designed to per­form the fol­low­ing tasks:

• Process per­fect­ly smooth smooth­ies from soft, hard, and fibrous ingre­di­ents, berries, and greens;
• Process the ice into snow, make ice cream, frozen desserts, and slushy drinks;
• Cre­ates “whole juice”;
• Han­dle hot ingre­di­ents, heat a liq­uid for soup with friction;
• Pre­pares sauces, dips, hum­mus, and pesto; chops veg­gies and nuts;
• Mash­es raw and cooked veggies;
• Makes nut milk;
• Process­es silki­est nut butter;
• Grinds spices, seeds, cof­fee beans,
• Mills bake qual­i­ty flour from grains, beans, and seeds.
• Kneads dough and mix­es batter.

Con­tain­er and Blades: Both Vita­mix E320 and E310 blenders come with high-qual­i­ty shat­ter and tem­per­a­ture-resis­tant con­tain­ers with clear ounces, ml, and cup marks. Both blenders have the stan­dard Vita­mix-designed top-notched blades that are per­ma­nent­ly built into containers.

How­ev­er, the two mod­els have dif­fer­ent con­tain­ers; the E310 mod­el comes with 48 oz. and the E320 with 64 oz. jar.

Tam­per: Both blenders are equipped with tampers.

Con­trol Pan­el: Both Vita­mix E320 and E310 blenders are equipped with iden­ti­cal and sim­ple con­trol pan­els that fea­ture a 10-speed dial knob and ON/OFF and Pulse levers. How­ev­er, such options of con­trol func­tions allow the user a lot of con­trol over the blend­ing processes.

Using and Clean­ing: As with all Vita­mix mod­els, E320 and E310 blenders are very easy to use and clean.

Extra Acces­sories: The man­u­fac­tur­ers sell a wide range of acces­sories for the Clas­sic Prod­uct line, where the Explo­ri­an mod­els belong. This range includes 32 oz Wet and Dry con­tain­ers, a per­son­al Blender Attach­ment, an Air Disc jar, Per­fect Scales, and a choice of small­er acces­sories such as a blade scrap­per and others.

War­ran­ty: The Explo­ri­an E310 comes with 5 years, the E320 new with 7 years, and the E320 (recon­di­tioned) with 3 years FULL WARRANTIES cov­er­ing all machines top to bot­tom. Vita­mix is also well known for the Best Cus­tomer Ser­vice in the industry.

Sum­ma­ry: Although the Explo­ri­an E320 and E310 Mod­els are mar­ket­ed as bud­get and entry-lev­el Vita­mix mod­els, they per­form exact­ly all func­tions that any oth­er Vita­mix mod­el can do. So this is the per­fect blender for any­one who wants to explore the world of high-end blend­ing but has a tight bud­get to spend mon­ey on oth­er, more expen­sive Vita­mix mod­els that fea­ture the same func­tion­al­i­ty but a range of “bells and whistles.”

BUY NOW

Best Blendtec Blenders for Smoothie

Blendtec is the Vita­mix com­peti­tor that has pre­sent­ed for over 30 years on the mar­ket. It has 9 blender mod­els cur­rent­ly in a price range between $350 and $800. The same as with Vita­mix blenders, any bud­get Blendtec machine can per­form all func­tions as the most advanced and expen­sive one.

Blendtec Designer 725 Blender

The Design­er 725 blender is the most advanced Blendtec mod­el. It is the most pow­er­ful among the Design­er Series mod­els 1800-watt motor, the most func­tion­al con­trol pan­el, and an array of oth­er pre­mi­um features.

Func­tion­al­i­ty: Sure, the Blendtec Design­er 725 is designed to per­form all High-End blender tasks at the high­est level:

• Process­es smoothest smooth­ies, includ­ing green ones;
• Crush­es and shaves ice for frozen desserts, snow cones, ice cream, and iced drinks;
• Blends “Whole Juice”;
• Heat soup to a steam­ing hot tem­per­a­ture with friction;
• Mash­es raw and cooks veggies;
• Chops food veggies;
• Mix­es sal­ad dress­ing, mari­nades, and mayonnaise;
• Process­es nut and soy milk;
• Pro­duce finest nut butter;
• Mills grains and beans into bak­ing qual­i­ty flour, grind herbs and cof­fee beans;
• Knead the dough and mix the batter.

Con­tain­er and blades: The Design­er 725 blender fea­tures 90 ounces of high-qual­i­ty Tri­tan copoly­ester mate­r­i­al Wild­Side+ con­tain­er with per­ma­nent­ly inbuilt patent­ed thick and strong dull stain­less steel wing tip designed blades.

Tam­per: The machine is not equipped with a tam­per since man­u­fac­tur­ers advo­cate the idea that the tru­ly pow­er­ful blender does not require one.

Con­trol Pan­el: The Design­er 725 is equipped with a very sleek and mod­ern capac­i­tive touch­screen con­trol pan­el. That has the 100 speeds, Pulse func­tion, and six (6) pre-set cycles — Smooth­ie, Sal­sa, Ice Cream, Whole Juice, Hot Soup, and Clean- and the option to add an addi­tion­al 10 sec­onds with an easy tap to any blend cycle you are cur­rent­ly using.

The speeds and pre-set pro­grams will sug­gest addi­tion­al usage func­tions (stir­ring, mix­ing, etc.) and usage for pre-set cycles.

Using and Clean­ing: The Blendtec comes with the blades per­ma­nent­ly built into con­tain­ers, so it is very easy to assem­ble, dis­as­sem­ble, and use.

Clean­ing is also extreme­ly easy, and it is designed for the self-clean­ing procedure.

Extra acces­sories: The Blendtec sells a range of extra acces­sories such as small­er jars, the spe­cial jar for thick blends with an inbuilt tam­per, and a per­son­al Blender attachment.

War­ran­ty: This mod­el is equipped with an excep­tion­al 8‑year Lim­it­ed War­ran­ty and very coop­er­a­tive and respon­sive cus­tomer service.

Sum­ma­ry: The blender is very com­pact con­sid­er­ing its pow­er and dimen­sions, 7’‘ wide x 15.5″ tall x 9.25’’ deep, and will not occu­py much of your counter space and eas­i­ly fit under any kitchen cab­i­net. This blender is tru­ly mul­ti-func­tion­al and deliv­ers awe­some blend­ing results.

BUY NOW

Blendtec Total Classic Original Blender

The Blendtec Total Clas­sic Orig­i­nal Blender was released in 2004 as the first Blendtec mod­el for home use. It fea­tured a very pow­er­ful 1560-watt motor with durable all-met­al blades for motor cou­pling. Over the last 15 years, Blendtec intro­duced a few oth­er pow­er­ful blender mod­els for home use while dis­con­tin­u­ing the Total Orig­i­nal blender. How­ev­er, it was so pop­u­lar that Blendtec released it again with an option of two dif­fer­ent jars and at the bud­get price.

Func­tion­al­i­ty:

• Pro­duces remark­ably smooth smooth­ies from hard, soft, and fibrous fruit, veg­eta­bles, and greens;
• Process­es frozen ingre­di­ents for ice cream, sor­bet, frozen yogurt, or frozen drinks;
• Makes whole juice;
• Pre­pare hot soup via blade frictions;
• Chops raw and cooked veg­gies for sal­ads, sal­sa, dress­ings, and others;
• Purees and baby food, raw and cooked veggies;
• Makes nut milk;
• Pro­duce excel­lent qual­i­ty nut butter;
• Kneads dough and batter;
• Grinds cof­fee beans and spices;
• Mills bake qual­i­ty flour from grains and beans.

Con­tain­er and Blades: Blendtec total is avail­able at 75 oz.  Four­Side Jar and new 90oz Wild­Side+ Jar. Both have square designs and are made from the same Tri­tan copoly­ester mate­r­i­al. How­ev­er, the Wild­Side+ con­tain­er has the lat­est inno­v­a­tive design for a bet­ter vortex.

Both con­tain­ers have the same shape and design, built into con­tain­ers with stan­dard Blendtec wing tips of extra strong and thick stain­less steel. The Four­Side jar has small­er and Wild­Side+ big­ger in diam­e­ter blades.

Con­trol Pan­el: The Blendtec Total Clas­sic Orig­i­nal Blender con­trol pan­el is equipped with an LCD infor­ma­tion cen­ter dis­play and 9 touch-pad con­trols that include 6 pre-set pro­grams (Ice Cream/Frozen Yogurt, Ice Crush/ Milk­shakes, Soups/Syrups/Fondues, Sauces/Dips/Dressings/Batters, Whole Juice, and Smooth­ies), Pulse mode, and two (“+” and “-“) but­tons for set­ting 10 incre­men­tal speeds.

Using, clean­ing: As with any Blendtec blender, it is very easy to use, assem­ble, and clean.

Extra acces­sories: The Blendtec offers a vari­ety of option­al acces­sories that include small­er jars, a spe­cial jar for thick blends with an inbuilt tam­per, and a per­son­al Blender attachment.

War­ran­ty: Total Clas­sic Orig­i­nal Blender comes with 8‑year and cer­ti­fied recon­di­tioned mod­els and has 3 years Lim­it­ed War­ran­ty and very coop­er­a­tive and respon­sive Cus­tomer Service.

Sum­ma­ry: The Total Clas­sic Orig­i­nal Blender is a bud­get Blendtec mod­el that offers all Blendtec gad­get expe­ri­ences for a small­er price. How­ev­er, the only machine with the Four­Side jar is avail­able at a dis­count­ed price; how­ev­er, it is as func­tion­al as the lat­est design WildSide+jar. Over­all, the Total Orig­i­nal mod­el is the best val­ue-for-mon­ey Blendtec blender. The blender is very com­pact, 7 x 8 x 15.5 in, and fits under any kitchen cabinet.

BUY NOW

Best Alternative to Vitamix Blender for under $200 for Smoothie

Con­sumers have a huge demand for a decent Vita­mix blender alter­na­tive at a low­er price. These machines are rep­re­sent­ed by the huge vari­ety of mod­els that often have all the func­tion­al­i­ty of High-End blenders but are not as well built and have a much short­er life span than the originals.

Some rep­utable brand have released their answer to this demand, and one of them is the Oster 1400 Watts pro blender. How­ev­er, the Chi­nese man­u­fac­tur­er also makes a lot of effort to copy the best Com­mer­cial type of blender for home use; the Clean­blend blender is the most successful.

Сleanblend Blender

The Clean­blend comes with a very pow­er­ful 1800 Watts (at peak) motor and a well-made all-met­al motor for blade cou­pling, blade shaft, and dri­ve sock­et. It also has the stan­dard for high-end blender over­load pro­tec­tion and cool­ing sys­tems that pro­tect the motor from overheating.

Func­tion­al­i­ty: The Clean­blend can per­form all High-end blender tasks at very close (80–90%) to Vita­mix and Blendtec quality:

• Make a very smooth smooth­ie; han­dles green smooth­ies well;
• Crush­es and shaves ice for snow cones, ice cream, frozen desserts, and iced drinks;
• Makes Whole Juice;
• Process­es hot soup via friction;
• Purees raw and cook veggies;
• Chops food veggies;
• Mix­es sal­ad dress­ing, mari­nades and mayonnaises;
• Makes nut and soy milk;
• Process­es good qual­i­ty nut butter;
• Grind herbs, chopped nuts, or mill grain into bak­ing qual­i­ty flour;
• Knead the dough and mix the batter;

Clean­blend is the only Vita­mix copycat/dupe that is designed to knead the dough.

Con­tain­er and blades: The blender fea­tures 64 ounces of high-qual­i­ty Tri­tan copoly­ester mate­r­i­al con­tain­er, per­ma­nent­ly inbuilt into the con­tain­er with strong stain­less steel 6‑pronged blades. The blades are fas­tened with a met­al lock­ing nut at the bot­tom of the container.

Tam­per: The machine equipped with the tam­per, the stan­dard fea­ture for high-end blenders, helps process tough ingredients.

Con­trol Pan­el: The Clean­blend con­trol pan­el is very sim­ple and very sim­i­lar to the Vita­mix 5200 mod­el. It is equipped with 10 vari­able speeds dial knob, Pulse func­tion, and On/Off switches.

Using and Clean­ing: The gad­get is equipped with blades per­ma­nent­ly built into con­tain­ers and a sim­ple con­trol pan­el. So it is very easy to assem­ble and use.

Clean­ing is also extreme­ly easy as it is designed as a self-clean­ing procedure.

Extra acces­sories: Clean­blend sells only a small­er 42 oz. con­tain­er for pro­cess­ing small­er recipes. How­ev­er, Clean­blend does not man­u­fac­ture per­son­al blender attachments.

War­ran­ty: Clean­blend is equipped with a very good 5‑year Lim­it­ed War­ran­ty and very coop­er­a­tive and respon­sive cus­tomer ser­vice. How­ev­er, it has only email con­tact and no tele­phone helpline.

Sum­ma­ry: Clean­blend is a good Vita­mix copy­cat, the only one that per­forms all the high-end blenders’ tasks, includ­ing dough knead­ing. The qual­i­ty of the per­for­mance of this machine is very close to Vita­mix and Blendtec. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it is not as durable as typ­i­cal high-end com­mer­cial-type blenders for home use.

BUY NOW

Vitamix Knockoff under $100 for Smoothie

Many Vita­mix dupes under $100 are made in Chi­na that have a pow­er­ful motor, very ques­tion­able qual­i­ty of built, and dura­bil­i­ty, but they often can make very smooth smooth­ies and per­form the major­i­ty of the High-ends blender tasks such as mak­ing ice cream and frozen desserts, heat­ing liq­uids with frac­tions and milling a bak­ing qual­i­ty flour.

These blenders usu­al­ly copy almost every Vita­mix design detail but are avail­able under a huge vari­ety of new­ly appeared brands that dis­ap­pear from the mar­ket at the same speed as they appear on it.

WantJoin Blender 1450W

The Home­geek blender is avail­able in two very sim­i­lar mod­els (NY- 8608MC and H24956). Both have a very close look at the Vita­mix 5200, a pow­er­ful 1450W/2.25HP off-peak motor and an all-met­al motor to blades driver.

The motor has an over­heat­ing and over­load­ing pro­tec­tion sys­tem. It could be oper­at­ed con­tin­u­ous­ly for up to 5 min and must be cooled for 10 min before the new operation.

Func­tion­al­i­ty: 

• Pro­duce qual­i­ty smooth­ies, includ­ing green and frozen ingredients;
• Makes snow cones, ice cream, sher­bets, and frozen drinks;
• Pre­pare nut milk;
• Han­dles hot liq­uid and heat food dur­ing blend­ing with fric­tions up to 180F;
• Mix­es sal­ad dress­ing, sauces, dips, and sal­sas, includ­ing hum­mus or pesto;
• Makes nut butter;
• Purees cooked and raw vegetables;
• Mills grains into flour for bak­ing; grinds cof­fee beans and spices;
• Mix­es batter;
• It does not make the dough.

Con­tain­er and Blades: Both NY- 8608MC and H24956 mod­els have very sim­i­lar designs and shapes to Vita­mix 68 oz. Tri­tan copoly­ester con­tain­ers. The con­tain­ers are made from the same qual­i­ty heat and shock-resis­tant plastic.

The blenders also come with a soft vent­ed sil­i­con lid that allows you to process hot food and add extra ingre­di­ents while blending.

It is equipped with 8 prongs of sharp blades built into the containers.

Tam­per: The blender is equipped with a tam­per which is a key fea­ture of the Vita­mix blender. The tam­per is a very use­ful tool that assists with elim­i­nat­ing air pock­ets dur­ing thick food processing.

Con­trols: The Homgeek NY- 8608MC mod­el con­trol pan­el is almost iden­ti­cal to the Vita­mix 5200 and has 10 speeds dial knob, on/off, and Pulse switch­es. How­ev­er, the H24956 mod­els have 9 speeds in total, 8 speeds dial, the High/Variable and on/off switch­es, addi­tion­al LCD time dis­play, and four (4) pre-set pro­gram but­tons — Smooth­ies Frozen Desserts, Ice Crush, and Soup.

With the low­est speed of 1,500 RPM and the high­est speed of 30,000, the blender is able to per­form all the high-end blenders’ func­tions. It can even heat the blend­ed liq­uids with fric­tions up to 180F (82C).

Using and Clean­ing: The gad­get is very easy to assemble/disassemble, use, and clean. The blender is not dish­wash­er safe.

War­ran­ty: The blender has only 1 year lim­it­ed but with the option to buy an extend­ed war­ran­ty for 2 or 3 years from the man­u­fac­tur­er. Cus­tomer ser­vice can be con­tact­ed via email ONLY.

Sum­ma­ry: The Homgeek mod­el per­forms close­ly to Vita­mix and Blendtec blenders. How­ev­er, the qual­i­ty of some task per­for­mance is infe­ri­or to high-end blenders. The major prob­lem is that this machine usu­al­ly has not a long life expectan­cy, and manufacturers/distributors of knock­off blenders usu­al­ly do not stay on the mar­ket for a long time; they may dis­ap­pear at any time, and the cus­tomer will hard­ly find replace­ment parts for the gadget.

BUY NOW

Best Blender for Smoothie under $100 from Reputable Brands

These blenders are usu­al­ly designed for light to medi­um tasks and make decent smooth­ies, sal­ad dress­ing, food prep tasks, and crush ice; some of them are even able to process hard food to a smooth con­sis­ten­cy, nut but­ter, and pesto, though, with a lot of effort.

They are gen­er­al­ly man­u­fac­tured by rep­utable brands, come with a 3‑year war­ran­ty, and will last for about 5 years.

Oster Pro 1200W Blender

Oster is a good rep­u­ta­tion brand. The Pro 1200 Blender is a medi­um-duty blender with a pow­er­ful 1200 Watts motor at peak. Very durable all met­al-to-met­al pow­er train and gear strip­ping. The blender comes in 3 dif­fer­ent pack­ages. It is the best and most pow­er­ful glass jar blender, too.

Func­tion­al­i­ty:

• It makes fair­ly smooth smooth­ies, even from hard fruits and veg­eta­bles, and fits green smooth­ies, too;
• Pos­si­ble to make whole juice;
• Crush­es ice very well, able to make snow cones;
• It suits hot ingre­di­ents since it comes in a glass jar but does not heat with friction;
• Purees cooked and raw veg­gies, suit­able for mak­ing Baby food;
• Process dress­ings, chop veg­gies, make dips includ­ing hummus;
• With a hand­ful of efforts pos­si­ble to pre­pare nut butter;
• Grinds herbs, cof­fee, mill oats, and grains into fair­ly good qual­i­ty flour.

Contain­er and Blades: A dis­tin­guish­ing fea­ture of the blender is that it comes with a good qual­i­ty 48 oz—resistant-to-thermal-shock glass jar.

The 6‑prong dual-direc­tion al met­al blade assem­bly is removable.

Tam­per: The blender does not come with a tam­per, so thick recipes will require some effort to prepare.

Con­trol Pan­el: The blender is equipped with 9 but­tons — Low, Med, and High speeds, Pulse func­tion, and 3 pre-set pro­grams (Green/Frozen Smooth­ies, Food/Chop Sal­sa, Milk­shakes), On/Off, and Stop but­tons. The con­trols allow enough flex­i­bil­i­ty for the user over the blend­ing process.

Using and Clean­ing: The Oster 1200 Pro is equipped with a remov­able blade and should be removed each time after use for clean­ing. It needs some effort to disassemble/assemble.

The Blade sys­tem includes blades them­selves, a screw­ing cap, and a seal­ing gas­ket. So it should be screwed and unscrewed each time before and after use. It should be done with care because remov­able blades may leak if not assem­bled properly.

Extra Acces­sories: The blender is avail­able in four pack­ages – 1) with 6 cups glass jar and 24 oz. per­son­al size cup; 3) with a glass pitch­er, sin­gle-serve cup, and food proces­sor attach­ment 4) with a large 8‑cup Tri­tan pitch­er and food proces­sor attachment.

War­ran­ty: The Oster Pro 1200 has 3 3‑year lim­it­ed war­ran­ty and 10 10-year lim­it­ed war­ran­ty for its motor and all-met­al gears. Oster cus­tomer ser­vice is very help­ful and will usu­al­ly resolve most of the customer’s queries and problems.

Sum­ma­ry: Accord­ing to our research, it is the best val­ue for a mon­ey blender for under $100 and also the best blender for a glass jar. It is pow­er­ful enough to per­form mid-range lev­el tasks and comes with per­son­al attach­ment. The Tri­tan pitch­er option pack­age has a food proces­sor attach­ment. It is a very good and ver­sa­tile blender that is quite durable and powerful.

BUY NOW

Best Personal Blender for Smoothie

Per­son­al or bul­let type of blenders came to the mar­ket in 2004 and quick­ly became very pop­u­lar. Many peo­ple find them very handy for the con­ve­nience of blend­ing the smooth­ie in the same cup and tak­ing it on the go with­out the need for a blender clean­ing procedure.

Although most per­son­al blenders are usu­al­ly not mul­ti­func­tion­al but do their major job, they make decent smooth­ies for busy peo­ple and may also per­form some light dusty tasks. The good news is they are rather afford­able gadgets.

Ninja Pro Personal Blender

The Nutri Nin­ja per­son­al blenders are avail­able in a vari­ety of mod­els. For­tu­nate­ly, they can be described into 3 major types. 451, 456 mod­els come with a 900 W motor, not a con­trols con­trol pan­el; the BL455 blender comes with a 1000Watss motor and no con­trol pan­el. The Nin­ja (BN401) Nutri Pro Per­son­al Blender mod­el comes with a 1000 watts motor and a sim­ple con­trol pan­el with 3 major func­tions, and the most sophis­ti­cat­ed mod­els, BL487, BL487A BL487, and Bl488W, come with 1100 watts motor and a bit com­pli­cat­ed con­trol pan­el. All the blenders come with dif­fer­ent types of cups and recipe books.

Nev­er­the­less, the per­for­mance does not dif­fer a lot, and the dif­fer­ence is almost neg­li­gi­ble. How­ev­er, it makes a dif­fer­ence to the user experience.

Func­tion­al­i­ty:

• Makes good qual­i­ty smooth­ies, includ­ing greens and frozen fruits and veggies;
• Crush­es ice with­out liq­uid added and makes snow cones con­sis­ten­cy and decent frozen desserts;
• Mix­es may­on­naise, sal­sa, dips, sal­ad dress­ing, and others;
• Can puree and chop raw and cooked vegetables;
• Can­not han­dle hot food;
• It is not designed for grind­ing and milling.

 Con­trol pan­el: The most basic BL451, BL456, and BL455 blenders are not equipped with any con­trol pan­els. Instead, they are oper­at­ed using one puls­ing speed by press­ing down the cup against the base unit.

The Nin­ja (BN401) Nutri Pro Per­son­al Blender mod­el con­trol pan­el comes with a dig­i­tal mini-dis­play and 4 con­trols – Start/Stop but­tons (runs max­i­mum for 60 sec­onds), the pulse func­tion, and two pre-pro­grammed cycles for 45 sec­onds and 60 seconds.

The Nin­ja Auto iQ Pro BL487, BL487A, BL487T, and BL488W mod­els are equipped with a dig­i­tal dis­play and 5 con­trol but­tons – Start/Stop, Pulse, Blend, Extract, and Smooth Boost (with Yes and No options for the smoother and coars­er tex­ture of blending).

Con­tain­ers and Blades: The blenders are avail­able in dif­fer­ent pack­ages with a selec­tion of cups of 12 oz., 18 oz., 24 oz., and 32 oz. made from thick poly­car­bon­ate mate­r­i­al or some­times from pre­mi­um qual­i­ty stress-resis­tant Tri­tan poly­car­bon­ate cups, some mod­els come with 24 oz. stain­less steel cup. Each cup usu­al­ly comes with a sip and seal lid.

All the Nin­ja per­son­al blenders come with 7‑fins, a sharp stain­less steel blade, and a plas­tic blade assem­bly. The blade assem­bly is inter­change­able between majori­ties of Nin­ja per­son­al blender models.

Using and Clean­ing: All per­son­al blenders are usu­al­ly very easy to use and espe­cial­ly clean. For this rea­son, they are very pop­u­lar. You usu­al­ly clean only the blades after use, while the cup will be tak­en on the go or used to con­sume the drinks.

War­ran­ty: All Nin­ja blenders come with a 1‑year lim­it­ed war­ran­ty. Cus­tomer Ser­vice is not the best in the indus­try, but it tends to improve in recent years.

Sum­ma­ry: The Nutri Nin­ja per­son­al blenders are the only per­son­al blenders on the mar­ket that can crush ice with­out liq­uid added, so any ice-crush­ing job is an easy task. The typ­i­cal price starts from 50–60 to over $100, depend­ing on the mod­el. Over­all it is a decent per­son­al blender. The only prob­lem is it does not have a long life expectan­cy and has only a 1‑year warranty.

BUY NOW

Best Blender for Smoothie Under $50

The basic blenders usu­al­ly come with up to 1000 watts of motor and are designed to per­form only basic tasks. They will not pre­pare frozen desserts for you, heat soup with fric­tions, mill bak­ing qual­i­ty flour, and hard­ly will mash pota­toes and puree veg­eta­bles. But they are usu­al­ly absolute­ly capa­ble of mak­ing decent smooth­ies, even from tougher ingredients.

The good news, this blender does not cost a for­tune, and you can eas­i­ly buy a decent basic blender for under $50.

Hamilton Beach Wave Crusher Blender

Hamil­ton Beach Wave Crush­er Blender is equipped with a pow­er­ful basic blender 700 Watts motor and is avail­able in 2 pan­cakes: 1) just blender and 2) blender with a chop­per attach­ment. The dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures of this gad­get are the glass jar and com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the Mason jar.

Func­tion­al­i­ty:

• It makes decent smooth­ies and milk­shakes; the hard and leafy ingre­di­ents require extra time for blend­ing (up to 2 min­utes) for the best result;
• Crush ice and frozen ingre­di­ents, but you may need to pulse them first before con­tin­u­ing speed processing;
• Han­dles hot liq­uids with­out problems;
• Chops raw veg­eta­bles, grate cheese, bak­ing choco­lates, cook­ies, and crack­er crumbs;
• Mix­es sal­sa, sal­ad dress­ings, and marinades;
• Grinds cof­fee beans, spices, and soft grains like oats;
• DOES NOT mash pota­toes; mix the dough, whip the egg, and grind raw meat.

Con­tain­er and Blades: The Hamil­ton Beach Wave Crush­er comes with heat and shock-resis­tant 40 oz. glass con­tain­er that has clear mark­ings in ounces and cups. The jar is equipped with a plas­tic vent­ed lid with a spout for con­ve­nient pouring.

This blender has remov­able blades that con­sist of blade assem­bly with a fixed gas­ket and col­lar for screw­ing it to the jar. The sharp 4‑fin sable shape blades are made of stain­less steel and have a wave action designed for forc­ing ingre­di­ents down for a bet­ter vortex.

Tam­per: This machine does not include a tam­per, which is typ­i­cal for low-end blenders.

Con­trol pan­el: The machine is equipped with 8 con­trol functions:

• Two pulse speeds — low pulse and high pulse;
• Six (6) speeds with an indi­ca­tion of suit­able tasks for a par­tic­u­lar speed — stir/clean, puree/whip, chop/salsa, milkshake/mix, smoothie/grate, grind/ice drink.

Using and Clean­ing: Although the blender needs some effort for assembling/disassembling, it is gen­er­al­ly quite easy to use and clean. It is dish­wash­er safe but also could be cleaned with a self-clean­ing pro­ce­dure. The blades are bet­ter to clean after each use also.

Extra acces­sories: This machine is avail­able with a chop­per attach­ment option (for light food pro­cess­ing tasks) and is com­pat­i­ble with a Mason jar for sin­gle-serve blend­ing tasks.

War­ran­ty: It comes with three years of Lim­it­ed War­ran­ty and help­ful cus­tomer service.

Sum­ma­ry: This is a very good entry-lev­el blender that is capa­ble of mak­ing decent-qual­i­ty smooth­ies and shakes. Remem­ber that you may need more time to process hard and fibrous food and use small­er ice cubes or frozen ingre­di­ents pieces for bet­ter results.

BUY NOW

 

How to Select the Best Blender for Smoothies

If you can afford a High-end blender, then no ques­tions; go for it. It will not only replace you with many kitchen appli­ances but will serve you many years, so you will not need to buy a new blender every year or two. Which High-end blender to buy, a pre­mi­um one, or a bud­get may also depend on your per­son­al pref­er­ences. For exam­ple, If you like new tech­nol­o­gy, you must go for Vita­mix A3500; if you like to press the blender but­ton and go, Blendtec 725 offers the best selec­tion of pre-set pro­grams. On the oth­er hand, if you val­ue sim­plic­i­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty in the blender, then go for the Vita­mix E320 or E310 Explo­ri­an model.

The peo­ple who want to buy the high-end blender but at a frac­tion of the price may be inter­est­ed in con­sid­er­ing the Clen­blend blender; it is a very decent Vita­mix copycat.

If you want a more durable blender but can sac­ri­fice a bit of the qual­i­ty of blend­ing, then go for the Oster Pro 1200 gad­get for under $100.

How­ev­er, if you are ready to risk and try a short live brand, but with all the Vita­mix func­tion­al­i­ty at a frac­tion of Vita­mix’s price, you may want to con­sid­er one of the Home­geek models.

If you are a fan of a per­son­al blender, then one of the Nin­ja Sin­gle-serve machines is in the field of your inter­est because Nin­ja is the only per­son­al blender brand that can crush with­out any liq­uid added.

If you are only ready to spend mon­ey on the entry blender mod­el, you will also ben­e­fit from the Hamil­ton Beach blender.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is there a Blender better than Vitamix?

Vita­mix is a well-known and respect­ed brand used in home set­tings, bars, and restau­rants. Indeed, it is one of the best blenders on the mar­ket in terms of ver­sa­til­i­ty, dura­bil­i­ty, and blend­ing quality.

The clos­est com­peti­tor for Vita­mix is the Blendtec blender, which offers sim­i­lar func­tion­al­i­ty, dura­bil­i­ty, and blend­ing quality.

How­ev­er, Vita­mix and Blendtec are expen­sive blenders, and some peo­ple may find oth­er blenders bet­ter suit­ed to their needs. When choos­ing a blender, it is cru­cial to con­sid­er fac­tors such as price, fea­tures, and performance.

What is the high­est-rat­ed Vita­mix Blender?

The Vita­mix 5200 is the most pop­u­lar Vita­mix mod­el; it is the bud­get mod­el. How­ev­er, the Ascent 3500 is the most advanced Vita­mix model.

All Vita­mix Blenders are pro­fes­sion­al-grade devices capa­ble of blend­ing a wide vari­ety of ingre­di­ents; how­ev­er, the 5200 blender han­dles small and large food batch­es equal­ly well, while Vita­mix Ascent 3500 comes with an array of advanced techy features.

What Blender do professional chefs use?

Pro­fes­sion­al chefs use a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent blenders depend­ing on their spe­cif­ic needs and pref­er­ences. How­ev­er, Vita­mix is pop­u­lar among pro­fes­sion­al chefs due to its high-qual­i­ty con­struc­tion, pow­er­ful motor, and versatility.

Pro­fes­sion­al chefs may also use Blendtec, War­ing, and KitchenAid brands. At the same time, the Bamix blender is the num­ber 1 option for pro­fes­sion­al chefs among the immer­sion blenders.

What’s the difference between a blender and a smoothie blender?

There is no dif­fer­ence between a blender and a smooth­ie blender. The “smooth­ie blender” is just a mar­ket­ing term.

Is Oster a good brand of Blender?

Oster blenders are gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered good qual­i­ty and offer a few pop­u­lar mod­els. For exam­ple, the Oster VERSA 1400-watt Blender is a pow­er­ful mod­el sim­i­lar to Vita­mix in terms of ver­sa­til­i­ty. While Oster 1200 Pro is the best Glass blender option.

What is bet­ter, a blender or a smooth­ie maker?

A blender and a smooth­ie mak­er are the same type of device. The smooth­ie make is just a mar­ket­ing term often used to iden­ti­fy per­son­al blenders with more lim­it­ed functionality.

 What is so spe­cial about the Nin­ja Blender?

The Nin­ja Blender is a famous brand of Blender known pri­mar­i­ly due to its very suc­cess­ful pro­mo­tion. It is a rel­a­tive­ly new brand that out­sources all its prod­ucts in Chi­na. It is not the best brand on the mar­ket and can hard­ly com­pete with such indus­try lead­ers as Vita­mix and Blendtec; nev­er­the­less, it offers quite a good qual­i­ty per­son­al blender models.

Is a Magic Bullet better than a blender?

The Mag­ic Bul­let is a well-known brand and won pop­u­lar­i­ty due to adver­tis­ing. It is just a per­son­al blender com­pa­ra­ble in qual­i­ty to the large vari­ety of oth­er per­son­al blenders avail­able in the mar­ket today.

Is there a better blender than the Ninja?

Many high-qual­i­ty blenders are on the mar­ket, and Nin­ja is not the best blender brand on a call. It is a new brand that out­sources its man­u­fac­tur­ing in Chi­na. How­ev­er, it has very aggres­sive adver­tis­ing, and thus, it is very well-known among consumers.

Can you use a regular blender for margaritas?

Yes, a reg­u­lar blender can be used to make mar­gar­i­tas. How­ev­er, you bet­ter use a pow­er­ful Blender for it, like Vita­mix or Blendtech, or brands that can han­dle the ice pro­cess­ing, such as Oster models.

How­ev­er, some peo­ple pre­fer a spe­cial­ized Mar­gar­i­taville blender to ensure a smoother and more con­sis­tent texture.

What is the difference between a blender and an ice cream maker?

A blender is a kitchen appli­ance used to mix, puree, or emul­si­fy food and oth­er sub­stances and is typ­i­cal­ly used for mak­ing smooth­ies, soups, sauces, and oth­er liq­uid-based recipes. How­ev­er, some high-end machines like Vita­mix or Blendtec are excel­lent at mak­ing frozen desserts, includ­ing ice cream.

On the oth­er hand, an ice cream mak­er is a machine used to make ice cream, sor­bet, and oth­er frozen desserts. It works by churn­ing a mix­ture of ingre­di­ents while freez­ing it simultaneously.

While both appli­ances can be used to make frozen drinks, they serve dif­fer­ent purposes.

 

Do you want to know which blenders are best in each cat­e­go­ry? Go straight to our in-depth blender reviews:

• Vita­mix Buy­ing Guide
• Blendtec Buy­ing Guide
• Best Qui­et Blender
• Best Vita­mix Alter­na­tive Blender For Under $200
• Best Pow­er­ful Per­son­al Blender
• Best Glass Jar Blender
• Best Blender Under $100
• Best Vita­mix Knock­off Blender Under $100
• Best Blender Under $50