Ninja Kitchen System Pulse (BL201) vs Oster Pro 1200 Blender

The Nin­ja Kitchen Sys­tem Pulse (BL201) is very pop­u­lar under the $100 coun­ter­top blender. Because of pro­fes­sion­al adver­tis­ing, peo­ple have to buy it. How­ev­er, the mar­ket is full of decent blenders in this price seg­ment. The Oster Pro 1200 Blender is one of the best among them. How­ev­er, the brand is well-known to a few gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­cans but is los­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty for the well-adver­tised Ninja.

Our com­par­i­son will high­light all the pros and cons of the Nin­ja Kitchen Sys­tem Pulse and Oster Pro 1200 Blender to help you under­stand which machine is the best between these two gadgets.

Alter­na­tive­ly, check our arti­cle Best Coun­ter­top Blender Under $100.

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Ninja Kitchen System Pulse (BL201)

The Nin­ja Kitchen Sys­tem Pulse (BL201) is equipped with a mod­er­ate 550 watts motor and non-durable plas­tic blades for motor coupling.

It has two con­tain­ers — 40 oz. pitcher/bowl with remov­able blade assem­bly, dough hook and cook­ie pad­dle, and sin­gle-serve cup with remov­able blades sys­tem. Both con­tain­ers are made from mod­est-qual­i­ty poly­car­bon­ate that tends to crack eas­i­ly. The 40 oz. blade assem­bly has the con­struc­tion of a food proces­sor type rather than a blender with 4 blades stag­gered around the plas­tic shaft. Such unusu­al blades do not han­dle a heavy-duty blend­ing job prop­er­ly but are more suit­able for light food pro­cess­ing tasks. Dough hook and cook­ie pad­dle bowl attach­ments are almost use­less because they are hard­ly able to process thick dough and bat­ter mix­tures. The sin­gle-serve blades have a stan­dard design and do their job fair­ly well.

The machine does not have any speeds and is oper­at­ed with a pulse func­tion only. Such lim­it­ed speed choice does not allow users much con­trol over the blend­ing process and exper­i­ments with a wide vari­ety of recipes. So, this machine can han­dle the fol­low­ing tasks:

• Process smooth­ies from soft ingre­di­ents but drinks from hard and leafy food come out of a very grit­ty con­sis­ten­cy; so this machine is not suit­able for mak­ing green smoothies;
• Crush­es ice only with liq­uid added and is not suit­able for pro­cess­ing frozen desserts;
• Chops veg­eta­bles for sal­sa, sal­ad dress­ings, mari­nades, and oth­ers; chops nuts, grat­ed cheese, and makes crumbs;
• Purees only cooked veg­eta­bles and require some liq­uid for this task;
• Even though it comes with dough and bat­ter hooks but han­dles the tasks with great dif­fi­cul­ties; it is not suit­able for knead­ing a prop­er thick dough.

This machine is not easy to assem­ble and use because it is equipped with a com­pli­cat­ed lock­ing sys­tem for lid and con­tain­er and has the stick­ing out blade assem­bly that does not allow fill­ing it with ingre­di­ents easily.

Besides, the Nin­ja Kitchen Sys­tem Pulse (BL201) comes with a hum­ble only 11-year lim­it­ed war­ran­ty and very unhelp­ful cus­tomer ser­vice. No won­der the aver­age life expectan­cy of the machine is around 1–1.5 years.

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Oster Pro 1200 Blender

The Oster Pro 1200 is a rel­a­tive­ly new blender on the mar­ket (released at the end of 2015) that is equipped with pow­er­ful 1200 watts motor. It is avail­able in two dif­fer­ent mod­els — Oster Pro 1200 with Sin­gle Cup and Oster Pro 1200 2‑in‑1 with Sin­gle Cup and Food Proces­sor attach­ments. The machine is well made, and like most of the Oster blenders, it has durable all-met­al blade assem­bly and blade-to-motor connections.

The machine comes with a lab-qual­i­ty glass 48 oz. (6 cups) pitch­er, the poly­car­bon­ate 24 oz. sin­gle-serve cup and 40 oz. food proces­sor bowl (only mod­el with food proces­sor attach­ment). The main con­tain­er is made from high-qual­i­ty stress and tem­per­a­ture-resis­tant borosil­i­cate glass; the poly­car­bon­ate sin­gle-serve cup and food proces­sor bowl are also made from high-qual­i­ty mate­r­i­al. The blender is equipped with one remov­able blade assem­bly, which fits the main pitch­er and sin­gle-serve cup. The mod­el with a food proces­sor attach­ment also includes a chop­ping blade and stain­less steel slic­ing disk for light food pro­cess­ing tasks.

The blender is equipped with low, medi­um, and high speeds, pulse func­tion, and 3 pre-set pro­grams — Green/Frozen Smooth­ies, Food Chop/Salsa, and Milk­shake. Such a selec­tion of speed gives enough flex­i­bil­i­ty to a user and allows exper­i­ment with new recipes. So, this ver­sa­tile machine is designed to per­form the fol­low­ing tasks:

• Decent drinks, includ­ing green smooth­ies, milk, and pro­tein shakes;
• Crush­es ice and frozen fruits with and with­out liq­uid added, able to crush ice into the snow-like con­sis­ten­cy and thus suit­able for mak­ing snow cones, frozen desserts, and frozen drinks (mar­gari­ta and others);
• Able to make “whole juice”;
• Puree­ing raw and cooked veg­gies into a smooths tex­ture even with­out liq­uid added, per­fect for spread and dips, able to make hum­mus and pesto;
• Suit­able for pro­cess­ing hot liq­uids for soup or bul­let­proof coffee;
• Chops well any veg­eta­bles for sal­sa, sal­ads, mari­nades, and chop­ping veg­gies for salad;
• With the efforts able to process nut but­ter;
• Nut milk;
• Grind­ing cof­fee beans, herbs, chia seeds, or flax seeds, and mills oats but do not make bak­ing qual­i­ty flour;
• Does not knead bat­ter but is able to mix watery betters;

In addi­tion, the Oster Pro 1200 gad­get comes with a 3‑year war­ran­ty on all parts and a 10-year Lim­it­ed War­ran­ty on all-met­al gears. Oster cus­tomer ser­vice has a very good rep­u­ta­tion. No won­der the brand is well-known for its dura­bil­i­ty and quality.

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Ninja Kitchen System Pulse (BL201)and Oster Pro 1200 Blender Differences and Features

	Nin­ja Kitchen Sys­tem Pulse (BL201)	Oster Pro 1200 Blender
Motor	550 watts and plas­tic gear dri­ve and oth­er blades to plas­tic connections;	1200 watts with all-met­al blade assem­bly and motor to the blade couplings;
Blades	Remov­able blade assem­bly with 4 very sharp blades stag­gered around the plas­tic shaft, plas­tic dough hook, and cook­ies pad­dle; stan­dard design 4 –prongs sin­gle-serve blades;	Remov­able all stain­less steel blade assem­bly that fits the main jar and sin­gle-serve cup; addi­tion­al chop­ping blade, slic­ing disk for mod­els with food proces­sor attachment;
Con­tain­ers	40 oz. low qual­i­ty (crack­able) poly­car­bon­ate bowl and 16 oz. sin­gle-serve cup;	Lab qual­i­ty shat­ter and tem­per­a­ture resis­tant 48 oz. pitch­er, good qual­i­ty poly­car­bon­ate 24 oz. sin­gle-serve cup and 40 oz. poly­car­bon­ate food proces­sor bowl (for a mod­el with food proces­sor attach­ment only);
Using & Cleaning	The 40 oz bowl is not easy to set up and dis­as­sem­ble for use since it has a cum­ber­some lid and pitch­er lock­ing sys­tem; sin­gle-serve blade assem­bly is easy to assemble;	Requires some effort to screw in/out blade assembly;
Con­trol panel	Low, medi­um, high speeds, pulse func­tion, and 3 pre-set pro­grams —  Green/Frozen Smooth­ies, Food Chop/Salsa, and Milkshake;	One-speed pulse func­tion only;
War­ran­ty	1‑year lim­it­ed war­ran­ty. Not help­ful Cus­tomer Service;	3‑year war­ran­ty on all parts and a 10-year Lim­it­ed War­ran­ty on the all-met­al gears with a good rep­u­ta­tion Cus­tomer Service;
Per­for­mance	Does not make decent green smoothies; Crush­es ice only with liq­uid added (not suit­able for frozen desserts); Chops veg­gies, nuts, and crumbs and makes oth­er light-duty food prep tasks; Does not han­dle hot liquids; Does not han­dle thick mix­ture and thus will not knead the dough and mix thick batter; Not suit­able for milling and grind­ing tasks.	High-qual­i­ty blend­ing includ­ing green smoothies, Crush­es ice makes ice cream and frozen desserts, Chops and minces vegetables; Han­dles hot liq­uids and thus suit­able for bul­let­proof coffee; Makes nut but­ter and nut milk; Purees raw and cooked vegetables; Grinds cof­fee beans and seeds, mills soft grains; Do not make dough.
Dimen­sions	The foot­print is 5.5 inch­es x 9 inch­es; the pro­file height is 13.5 inch­es with 40 oz. bowl on the top of the base unit. It fits under all kitchen cab­i­nets. Weight is 5.1 pounds. Requires some space for attach­ment storage.	The foot­print is 8.5 inch­es x 10.2 inch­es; the pro­file height is 14 inch­es tall with the 6‑cup pitch­er on the top of the base unit. It eas­i­ly fits under stan­dard kitchen cab­i­nets. The weight is 7 pounds.

How to Choose Between the Two Blenders

The Oster Pro 1200 Blender out­per­forms Nin­ja Kitchen Sys­tem Pulse (BL201) by all para­me­ters. It is far more ver­sa­tile than Nin­ja with much bet­ter blend­ing qual­i­ty out­put. Apart from a much stronger and more pow­er­ful motor, the Oster also has a bet­ter selec­tion of speeds that allows much bet­ter con­trol over the blend­ing process.

For instance, Oster Pro 1200 makes excel­lent smooth­ies, includ­ing green ones, while the Nin­ja Kitchen Sys­tem Pulse is hard­ly suit­able for mak­ing green drinks. The Oster process­es ice ingre­di­ents very well and will make any frozen desserts or con­coc­tions drinks, while Nin­ja only process­es ice with enough liq­uid added. The Oster is designed to han­dle hot liquids/food with­out a prob­lem, and Nin­ja is absolute­ly not suit­able for this. It can puree cooked and raw ingre­di­ents, while Nin­ja only han­dles soft ingre­di­ents with enough liq­uids added. Fur­ther­more, Oster is able to make nut but­ter (although with some effort), and Nin­ja nev­er can even try this task.

In addi­tion, Oster comes with a rare nowa­days glass con­tain­er that is safe from any chem­i­cals leak­ing into food, while Nin­ja has not only low-qual­i­ty plas­tic con­tain­ers which may release harm­ful chem­i­cals, but also they are crack­able with a very short life expectan­cy. The all-met­al blade assem­bly and cou­pling is anoth­er strong side of Oster machines com­par­ing the frag­ile and non-last­ing Nin­ja plas­tic blade assem­bly and connections.

Con­sid­er­ing that both blenders have an almost sim­i­lar price, the Oster Pro 1200 Blender 2‑in‑1 with Food Proces­sor Attach­ment of cause the win­ner in this comparison.

Summary

The bot­tom line, is the Oster is a much bet­ter prod­uct and out­per­forms Nin­ja. The Oster blenders are well known to all Amer­i­can house­holds for their dura­bil­i­ty and well-built. Most like­ly, the Oster Pro 1200 Blender will serve many years. While the Nin­ja brand has very strong adver­tis­ing but their blenders have quite a short aver­age life expectan­cy and last for about 1–1.5 years. That is clear­ly reflect­ed in the 1‑year Nin­ja Kitchen Sys­tem Pulse (BL201) war­ran­ty com­pared to 3 years for blender and 10 years for all-met­al motor war­ran­ty for Oster Pro 1200.

So, if you are look­ing for a good val­ue for your mon­ey blender that will last for many years and out­put good blend­ing qual­i­ty, then the Oster must be your option.

How­ev­er, if you are not sure about this blender, you can alter­na­tive­ly check our arti­cle The Best Coun­ter­top Blender Under $100.