NutriBullet Blender Combo 1200 Watt Review — ZNBF30400Z and ZNBF30500Z Models

A NutriBul­let has been one of the most inter­na­tion­al­ly estab­lished per­son­al blender brands since 2003, when it came to the mar­ket with an idea of an upside-down bul­let-like sin­gle-serve blender. The brand has been loy­al to the con­cept for many years. To be pre­cise, until 2019, when the NutriBul­let released two (2) coun­ter­top mod­els — the Com­bo ZNBF30500Z blender (with a full-size jug and sin­gle-serve attach­ment) and the ZNBF30400Z blender (with a full-size jar only).

Giv­en that the NutriBul­let ZNBF30400Z and Com­bo ZNBF30500Z blenders press release claim “in terms of val­ue, you’re get­ting a top-of-the-line blender the likes of Vita­mix, for a frac­tion of the cost,” we decid­ed to review these new machines and con­firm or reject this very con­fi­dent claim above.

Would you be inter­est­ed in alter­na­tive options? Check our pop­u­lar articles:

• Best Vita­mix Alter­na­tive Blender under $200 – 2020 Guide
• Best NutriBul­let Blender – All Mod­els Com­par­i­son 2020
• Best Blender for Smooth­ies and More – Buy­ing Guide 2020

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

Functionality and Versatility

Smooth­ie: It can process soft and tough fruits and veg­gies like pineap­ple, car­rot, dates, greens, spinach, kale, stringy cel­ery, and oth­ers. The ben­der also pul­ver­izes chia seeds, flax seeds, and almonds and is able to oblit­er­ate fruit skin. Over­all, it makes good shakes and smooth smooth­ies, includ­ing green ones.  How­ev­er, it does not deal well with berry seeds like rasp­ber­ry and blue­ber­ry seeds. It also may leave some chunks when pro­cess­ing hard veg­gies like car­rots or pineap­ple and thus requires blend­ing them for longer (usu­al­ly 2 minutes).

Ice crush­ing: The blender can crush ice in the smooth­ies, but only if you add enough liq­uids for this recipe; the tam­per that comes with these blenders is a great help for pro­cess­ing smooth­ies from frozen ingre­di­ents. Since this gad­get can­not process ice with­out liq­uid, it will not make snow cones or good-qual­i­ty frozen desserts, while it will mix slush­es and alco­holic bev­er­ages at a medi­um speed that is per­fect for this task. You can find a few mar­gari­ta and daiquiris recipes in the cook­book that comes with the blender set.

Juic­ing: No blender can make the clas­sic juice that sep­a­rates the fiber from liq­uid, while these mod­els can process smooth enough smooth­ies to out­put a“whole juice.”

Hot ingredients/Soup: The blender descrip­tion claims it makes soups. It can make soup if only the user trans­fers cooked and cooled ingre­di­ents at under 21 C/70 F degrees tem­per­a­ture into the jug for con­tent liq­uidiz­ing. How­ev­er, these machines can­not heat food with fric­tion because they do not have enough speed for the task and are designed for lim­it­ed con­tin­u­ous run­ning time (advised for a max­i­mum of 1 minute).  These blenders can­not process hot ingre­di­ents in the jug sim­ply because the con­tain­ers can­not han­dle hot liquids.

Thus, the blender is not designed to make bul­let­proof cof­fee or process any oth­er hot liquids.

Nut milk: The blender can process fair­ly good nut milk by blend­ing nuts and water. You are advised to strain the blend­ed liq­uid through the nut bag to sep­a­rate the fiber for the best result.

Nut but­ter: These blenders’ pow­er, high speed, and tam­per allow them to make nut but­ter only from the roast­ed nuts, and with adding some oil, it is hard­ly able to achieve a good result with­out adding the oil. Be pre­pared to stop it a few times dur­ing the pro­cess­ing to scrap the walls from stuck thick mixtures.

Pureeing/baby food: This machine is equipped with a tam­per and has enough pow­er to process a fair­ly thick mix­ture. It can puree cooled cooked veg­gies and make baby food.

Chopping/mixing food preps: It can process sauces, rel­ish­es, sal­ad dress­ings, sal­sas, and mari­nades using a low speed and pulse func­tion. It also makes good-qual­i­ty spreads and dips with tam­per’s help, includ­ing pesto and hum­mus. The pulse mode also allows users to chop food like onion or cab­bage to pre­pare coleslaw.

Grind­ing: Although these blenders can grind cof­fee (only to the medi­um ground for the French Press) or spices, the man­u­fac­tur­er does not rec­om­mend using a blender for pro­cess­ing dry ingre­di­ents such as grains, cere­al, or cof­fee, as it may dam­age the motor and blade.

Speed Settings and Programs

Although the Com­bo ZNBF30500Z (with a full-size jug and sin­gle-serve attach­ment) and the ZNBF30400Z (with a full-size jug only) NutriBul­let mod­els look sim­i­lar, they have a slight­ly dif­fer­ent con­trol pan­el and functionality.

The ZNBF30400Z (with­out per­son­al blender) mod­el con­trol pan­el comes with the ON/OFF but­ton, LOW, MED, HIGH speeds, and PULSE buttons.

The ON/OFF but­ton turns the blender ON. The LOW, MED, and HIGH con­trols are acti­vat­ed by press­ing them; the speed cycle will run until you stop the blender by press­ing the ON/OFF but­ton or the appro­pri­ate LOW, MED, or HIGH speed the sec­ond time. How­ev­er, the man­u­fac­tur­er advis­es stop­ping the blender once it starts to heat the liq­uid with fiction.

The PULSE func­tion is acti­vat­ed sim­ply by hold­ing the but­ton down; it will con­tin­ue run­ning until you release it. The PULSE func­tion is ben­e­fi­cial for the momen­tary task and also allows the user to make chunky recipes.

The Com­bo ZNBF30500Z mod­el con­trol pan­el comes with the ON/OFF but­ton, EXTRACT, LOW, MID, HIGH speeds, and PULSE but­tons. So, it has only one EXTRACT extra but­ton com­pared to the ZNBF30400Z model.

The ON/OFF, LOW, MID, HIGH speeds and PULSE con­trols func­tion the same way as the basic mod­el. How­ev­er, when you run the sin­gle-serve attach­ment, the LOW, MEDIUM, or HIGH speeds will auto­mat­i­cal­ly shut off the unit at the end of 1 min cycle to pre­vent heat and pres­sure build-up sin­gle-serve cup if you need to blend for longer, then start anoth­er 1‑minute cycle.

The EXTRACT but­ton starts the 1‑minute cycle and runs a few increas­ing speed cycles; it is designed for mak­ing smooth­ies. The blender will stop auto­mat­i­cal­ly at the end of the 1‑minute EXTRACT cycle for both the full-size jar and the sin­gles serve cups.

Warn­ings:

• The sin­gle-serve attach­ment is not inter­change­able between Com­bo and Basic mod­els; you can­not buy sep­a­rate­ly sin­gle-serve attach­ments and use them with the Basic mod­el base unit. You have to buy a com­bo or basic mod­el with­out a chance to use it with the per­son­al blender attachment.
• The con­trol pan­el but­tons feel flim­sy and are not smooth to press.

Ease of Using and Cleaning

Oper­at­ing: The NutriBul­let ZNBF30400Z and Com­bo ZNBF30500Z blenders are both very easy to use.

The main 64 oz jar comes with the blades per­ma­nent­ly inbuilt into the con­tain­er. So to start using it, you have to add the ingre­di­ents to the pitch­er up to the MAX lines (it has two MAX lines for sol­id and liq­uid ingre­di­ents), align the lid to the han­dle, press it into place, locate the pitch­er onto the motor base and twist gen­tly clock­wise, so it locks in place (you can locate pitch­er in any posi­tion BUT NOT the align­ing the han­dle to the back). Now press the ON/OFF but­ton and fol­low by press­ing the need­ed speed, extract or pulse con­trol; the blender will run.

To remove the blender from the base unit, turn it anticlockwise.

The Com­bo ZNBF30500Z per­son­al blender attach­ment has an improved design com­pared to the old NutriBul­let 600 and 900 mod­els and has the blade assem­bly in one piece with­out any gas­ket. For run­ning the sin­gle-serve cup, the user has to add ingre­di­ents to the NutriBul­let cup up to the MAX line, twist the blade assem­bly tight­ly to the cup, turn the cup upside down, place it onto the motor base and gen­tly turn the cup clock­wise to lock into the motor base. To start blend­ing, select a speed or the EXTRACT program.

To dis­as­sem­ble the attach­ment, twist it anti­clock­wise until the click and remove the blade assem­ble from the cup.

Warn­ing: The base unit-con­tain­ers con­nec­tion is very sen­si­tive; the min­i­mum touch is enough to shut off the blender. For exam­ple, if you add extra ingre­di­ents when it runs, the jar’s slight pres­sure may stop the blend­ing cycle.

Clean­ing: The 64 oz. Con­tain­er and sin­gle-serve cups are dish­wash­er safe. How­ev­er, hand wash­ing or self-clean­ing will extend the con­tain­er’s dura­bil­i­ty.  The 64 oz. the jar has the blades per­ma­nent­ly inbuilt into con­tain­ers, so you can use a self-clean­ing pro­ce­dure to clean it. You have to rinse the con­tain­er or use the dish­wash­er brush to remove obsti­nate ingre­di­ents, if any, then add some water with a few drops of soap and run for 15–45 sec, then rinse and dry it. The best prac­tice is to wipe it dry with a cloth after clean­ing and not let it air-dry is that the con­tain­er will become cloudy over time.

Warn­ing: The Nutre­Bul­let has very sharp blades; han­dle them care­ful­ly to avoid lac­er­a­tion injury.

Base Unit and Motor Power

NutriBul­let 1200 Watts comes with a pow­er­ful 1200 watts motor and all plas­tic blade-to-motor dri­ve cou­pling that sub­stan­tial­ly reduces the motor’s durability.

Nev­er­the­less, it has nice fea­tures too. Both blender mod­els’ base unit back and bot­tom are equipped with a vent­ing sys­tem and an inter­nal ther­mal break­er that shuts off the motor when it over­heats, which makes this machine safe to oper­ate. The machine also comes with suc­tion cups on the base to reduce unit vibra­tion and keep it sta­ble while it is running.

Containers

Bothe NutriBul­let ZNBF30400Z and Com­bo ZNBF30500Z mod­els set include the durable BPA-free plas­tic 64 oz./8cups/1800ml con­tain­er with a blade assem­bly per­ma­nent­ly inte­grat­ed into a con­tain­er. In addi­tion, the pitch­er is equipped with a safe­ty lock­ing mech­a­nism and will not start run­ning if locked to the base unit incorrectly.

The con­tain­er walls fea­ture clear mea­sur­ing marks in ounces, cups, and ml and MAX line mark­ing for the sol­id (64 oz. /8 cups) and liq­uid (56 oz. /7 cups) ingre­di­ents. The con­tain­er has a soft grip, sil­i­con rub­ber lin­ing han­dle, and easy-pour spout.

Lid: It is equipped with a rub­ber lid that seals snug­ly into the jar and a remov­able vent­ing cap. The user can remove the cap and add extra ingre­di­ents to the open­ing dur­ing the blend­ing with­out stop­ping the machine or insert­ing a tamper.

Tam­per:  The blenders also come with a hol­low plas­tic stick/tamper designed to pre­vent air pock­ets dur­ing thick mix­ture processing.

The ZNBF30500Z Com­bo mod­el comes with an addi­tion­al BPA-free plas­tic 32-oz and 24-oz (han­dled) sin­gle-serve cups, remov­able blade assem­bly, and two (2) to-go lids. In addi­tion, cups fea­ture two MAX lines for sol­id ingre­di­ents (high­er line) and liq­uids (low­er line) and no mea­sur­ing marking.

Blades

The NutriBul­let ZNBF30500Z/ZNBF30400Z full-size 64 ounces pitch­er comes with a blade assem­bly per­ma­nent­ly inte­grat­ed into the con­tain­er; this design is typ­i­cal for high-end blenders and is known for excel­lent seal­ing that elim­i­nates leak­age prob­lems. The blades are made from stain­less steel and designed with 4 long heavy-duty prongs and 2 sharp­ened short ones for cre­at­ing an effec­tive cyclonic vortex.

The Com­bo ZNBF30500Z mod­el comes with an addi­tion­al remov­able set of blade assem­bly (easy-twist extrac­tor blade) that is inter­change­able for 24 oz. and 32 oz. cups for run­ning sin­gle-serve blender attach­ment. The easy-twist extrac­tor blade has a 4‑prongs design and is made of stain­less steel. In addi­tion, the easy-twist extrac­tor blade sys­tem fea­tures an improved ver­sion of the NutriBul­let 600 and Pro 900 mod­els as they are con­struct­ed in one piece with­out the O‑ring, mak­ing the blade assem­bly easy to screw on and less prone to leakage.

Warn­ing: The inte­grat­ed and remov­able sets of blades are very sharp and must be han­dled with care. The sharp blades tend to lose sharp­ness over time. So, the man­u­fac­tur­er rec­om­mends replac­ing the easy-twist extrac­tor blade every 6 months for the best performance.

Special Features

Col­or: Both NutriBul­let Com­bo ZNBF30500Z and NutriBul­let ZNBF30400Z blenders only come in dark gray color.

Cer­ti­fied Refur­bished: Both mod­els are avail­able in renewed con­di­tion (cer­ti­fied refur­bished), while they are just mar­gin­al­ly cheap­er than the orig­i­nal models.

Oper­a­tion out­side of USA/Canada: NutriBul­let Com­bo ZNBF30500Z and NutriBul­let ZNBF30400Z are sold in the USA and Cana­da and equipped with a 110–120 volt­age sys­tem. Man­u­fac­tur­ers dis­cour­age to use of the unit in coun­tries with a 220–240 volt­age sys­tem, even via the volt­age trans­former, as it may com­pro­mise the blender warranty.

Noise

Nutribul­let Com­bo ZNBF30500Z and NutriBul­let ZNBF30400Z are noisy machines. The noise depends on a vari­ety of para­me­ters — the food you blend, the sur­face the blender is sit­ting on, the dis­tance to the wall, etc. Approx­i­mate­ly the unit release about 100 dB. To reduce the noise com­ing from the blender, the user can place it on the rub­ber mat, which usu­al­ly reduces the sound.

Warranty and Customer Service

Both Com­bo ZNBF30500Z and ZNBF30400Z Nutribul­let blenders are equipped with only a 1‑year LIMITED war­ran­ty cov­er­ing any defects in mate­ri­als and artistry dur­ing this peri­od from the date of retail pur­chase. The war­ran­ty is not trans­ferrable and is applied only to the orig­i­nal pur­chas­er. In addi­tion, the blenders come with 30 days tri­al peri­od. How­ev­er, NutriBul­let charges ship­ping and pro­cess­ing fees for returns, replace­ments, and/or refunds, includ­ing around a $30 restock­ing fee plus applic­a­ble ship­ping fees.

Cus­tomers can reg­is­ter the NutriBul­let ZNBF30500Z and ZNBF30400Z war­ran­ty online or con­tact the NutriBul­let Com­pa­ny via phone at 1–800-523‑5993. You have to keep the orig­i­nal pur­chase receipt safe with a descrip­tion of the prod­uct, pur­chase date, and the appro­pri­ate NutriBul­let ser­i­al num­ber to apply the warranty.

NutriBul­let cus­tomer ser­vice does not have the best indus­try rep­u­ta­tion, and they are usu­al­ly very reluc­tant to replace or repair faulty products.

Optional Accessories and Attachments

The NutriBul­let ZNBF30500Z/ZNBF30400Z pitch­er, cups, and sin­gle-serve attach­ment blades (easy twist extrac­tor blades) are incom­pat­i­ble with oth­er NutriBul­let models.

The replace­ment con­tain­ers, blade sys­tem, and addi­tion­al acces­sories for the ZNBF30500Z/ZNBF30400Z mod­els are avail­able soon from the man­u­fac­tur­er’s web­site and oth­er retailers:

• The 64 oz. replace­ment pitcher; 
• The small­er 56 oz. full-size container;
• The replace­ment 24 oz. Han­dled Cup;
• The replace­ment 24 oz. Cup;
• The Com­bo Easy Twist Replace­ment Extrac­tor Blade;
• NutriBul­let 4‑Pack Stain­less Steel Straws.

So, there is only an addi­tion­al 56 oz. jar avail­able for the blender. How­ev­er, it does not offer 32 oz. Com­bo replace­ment cup; you can replace it with an option of 24 oz. cups instead.

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Set Includes

• 1200 Watts motor base;
• 64 oz. pitch­er with the inbuilt blade system;
• Pitch­er lid with vent­ed lid cap;
• 32-oz sin­gle-serve cup with to-go lids;
• 24-oz sin­gle-serve han­dled cup with to-go lids;
• Remov­able and inter­change­able Easy-twist extrac­tor blade;
• Tam­per;
• User guide;
• Recipes guide with some health-relat­ed information;
• War­ran­ty reg­is­tra­tion card;
• Quick start guide.

You can find addi­tion­al recipes on the NutriBul­let website.

Dimensions

NutriBul­let ZNBF30500Z/ZNBF30400Z Blender has a mod­er­ate base unit foot­print of 7.75” X 8.07” and a 16.97” pro­file that will not occu­py much of the counter space and will eas­i­ly fit under a stan­dard kitchen cab­i­net. In addi­tion, the gad­get fea­tures a 3.5 ft. long pow­er cord.

Although the Nutribul­let’s base is made of light­weight plas­tic and weighs only 9.35 pounds, suc­tion cups on the bot­tom pre­vent unit vibra­tion when you blend thick and hard ingredients.

NutriBullet Pros and Cons

Pros:

• A pow­er­ful machine that makes fair­ly smooth drinks, includ­ing green smoothies;
• It fits under the stan­dard kitchen cabinet;
• The blender is very easy to use and suit­able for com­plete healthy lifestyle beginners;
• The Com­bo mod­el comes with Extract pre-set cycle that allows the user to set and go away while the blender shut-off automatically;

Cons:

• This blender can­not crush ice with­out plen­ty of liquid;
• Comes with non-durable plas­tic motor-to-blades couplings;
• Equipped with only a 1‑year Lim­it­ed warranty;
• The man­u­fac­tur­er rec­om­mends replac­ing the sin­gle-serve attach­ment blade assem­bly every 6 months, which will result in extra cost to the customer;
• Comes with a poor­ly designed tam­per that is too short for its purposes;
• The Com­bo and Basic mod­els are not com­pat­i­ble, so you can­not buy the sin­gles serve attach­ment for the basic mod­el and use it as Combo.

NutriBullet Consumer Reviews

All NutriBul­let blenders are top-rat­ed, thanks to the pro­fes­sion­al and appeal­ing adver­tise­ment. Since the Com­bo ZNBF30500Z and Basic ZNBF30400Z mod­els seem to be of bet­ter qual­i­ty than very pop­u­lar old­er NutriBul­let mod­els, these new blenders will fight for their share of the mid-range full-size blender niche.

Price

The NutriBul­let machines are very pop­u­lar, thus slight­ly high­er priced than oth­er sim­i­lar qual­i­ty blenders. How­ev­er, both mod­els are avail­able for under $$-$$$, with most of the retail­ers for most of the time. You can grab a bar­gain quite often, though.

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Summary

The Com­bo ZNBF30500Z (with a full-size jug and sin­gle-serve attach­ment) and ZNBF30400Z (with a full-size jug) are decent mid-range machines. How­ev­er, the NutriBul­let com­mer­cials are mis­lead­ing cus­tomers with the claim that NutriBul­let’s new mod­els are com­pa­ra­ble to the high-end Vita­mix blenders. They are not. They can­not per­form the full range of Vita­mix tasks, are con­sid­er­ably less pow­er­ful, have much low­er high­est-speed RPMs, have a weak­er torque, and cer­tain­ly, they are not as well-built as Vita­mix machines. Final­ly, the Vita­mix blenders come with a 5–10 years Full war­ran­ty com­pared to the NutriBul­let 1‑year Lim­it­ed warranty.

Nev­er­the­less, the Com­bo ZNBF30500Z and ZNBF30400Z are pret­ty ver­sa­tile and, cer­tain­ly, the most suc­cess­ful NutriBul­let mod­els that are very sim­ple to use and clean. How­ev­er, they have a lim­it­ed range of speeds (only three (3) speeds) but are pow­er­ful enough for basic to medi­um-range tasks. They blend smooth smooth­ies, includ­ing green ones, make dips, do basic food prep tasks well, and are even able to pre­pare nut but­ter, though with some effort. With all this, they are good-qual­i­ty “sim­ple” blenders.

If you decide to go for one of the Nutribul­let blenders, remem­ber that you have to choose between the basic mod­el (ZNBF30400Z) or the Com­bo one (ZNBF30500Z) with the sin­gle-serve attach­ment before buy­ing.  Since the two mod­el attach­ments are incom­pat­i­ble, you can­not upgrade lat­er and buy a sin­gle-serve attach­ment to use with the basic ZNBF30400Z model.

So…. If you are an afi­ciona­do of the NutriBul­let and loy­al to the brand, then it is the best Nutribul­let blender and cer­tain­ly worth con­sid­er­ing. If you are not so keen on NutriBul­let and con­sid­er­ing oth­er options, then you may be inter­est­ed in our oth­er reviews:

• Best Vita­mix Alter­na­tive Blender under $200 – 2020 Guide
• Best NutriBul­let Blender – All Mod­els Com­par­i­son 2020
• Best Blender for Smooth­ies and More – Buy­ing Guide 2020