Vitamix 5200 Blender Review — Is It Still The Best Vitamix Model?

The Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard mod­el is a base­line of the Vita-Mix Cor­po­ra­tion blender, and it was first released at the end of 2007. Its excep­tion­al qual­i­ty and dura­bil­i­ty were test­ed over time. Even though Vita­mix intro­duced many new prod­uct lines and mod­els in 2007, the Clas­sic 5200 remains the most pop­u­lar Vita-Mix blender today in 2020 and the most pop­u­lar high-end blender on the market.

Read the rest of the Vita­mix 5200 review to under­stand the secret of the Vita­mix 5200 blender’s immense popularity.

Are you also inter­est­ed in alter­na­tive Vita­mix blender options? Check our arti­cle Which is the Best Vita­mix to Buy? – All Mod­els Com­par­i­son.

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

Vitamix 5200 Standard Functionality and Versatility

Smooth­ie:  This machine eas­i­ly makes the per­fect qual­i­ty fruit and veg­etable drinks in only 15–20 sec­onds using high speed. It dis­in­te­grates any hard ingre­di­ents, includ­ing leafy ones, cored pineap­ples, car­rots, and cored apples, and is even able to pul­ver­ize the avo­ca­do seed with­out much effort. So the blender is per­fect for blend­ing green smooth­ies and eas­i­ly pul­ver­izes any nuts, flax seeds, straw­ber­ry, and blue­ber­ry seeds added to drinks with­out tex­ture or residues left.

Ice-crush­ing and Frozen treat: This machine is per­fect for crush­ing ice or frozen fruits in smooth­ies. It eas­i­ly shaves ice for pro­duc­ing Mar­gar­i­tas, Pina Coladas, and oth­ers. It han­dles nice frozen ingre­di­ents even with­out any liq­uid added. It makes the most deli­cious snow cones, fruit sor­bet, frozen yogurt, or ice cream by switch­ing on high speed, blend­ing it for less than 30 sec­onds, and using a tam­per to push down the frozen ingredients.

Juices: The Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard machine will not squeeze the text­book juice because it is a blender and does not include any juice-squeez­ing attach­ments. How­ev­er, it is so pow­er­ful that it will eas­i­ly blend any ingre­di­ents into the silki­est con­sis­ten­cy smooth­ies, aka “whole juice.”

Nut milk: Peo­ple on a non-dairy diet will great­ly ben­e­fit from own­ing this machine as it can be used to make high-qual­i­ty, dairy-free milk out of nuts or shred­ded coconut.

Pure and baby food: The blender makes fan­tas­tic vel­vet-like mash­es, hum­mus, and oth­er spreads and dips. It is also per­fect for mak­ing baby food.

Hot soups/hot ingre­di­ents: This blender heats liq­uids via fric­tion to the steam­ing hot tem­per­a­ture from room tem­per­a­ture in 5–6 min­utes using high speed. Peo­ple on a veg­an raw diet may find this func­tion very use­ful as it can warm any liq­uid to the allow­able 100 F (or 40 degrees Cel­sius) in just 3 min­utes or less.

It is also more than capa­ble of pro­duc­ing bul­let­proof cof­fee, syrups, fon­dues, etc. There is no heat­ing ele­ment built into the machine; the tem­per­a­ture of the blend­ed liq­uid is deter­mined ONLY by the length of the blend­ing time.

Chopping/food prep: This machine is equipped with an excel­lent range of speeds and very low RPMs, so it makes with no effort gua­camole, sal­sa, or any sal­ad dress­ings. It can also chop and mince cab­bage, onions, and car­rots for coleslaw and oth­er recipes. Of course, you have to run the blender at low speed for chop­ping tasks and drop the veg­gies over the cap opening.

Nut but­ter: The Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard mod­el makes the silki­est qual­i­ty nut but­ter with the help of a tam­per, which push­es down the ingre­di­ents to ensure that the motor does not overheat.

Grinding/milling: It grinds any herbs or cof­fee beans with­out any effort. It mills bak­ing qual­i­ty flours equal­ly well from hard grains like rice or tiny amaranth.

Dough/batter:  This machine kneads dough even with a low-speed wet blade con­tain­er. How­ev­er, the dry blades con­tain­er is also avail­able for those who often use the machine for flour milling and dough kneading.

Do a lot of food prepa­ra­tion or cook­ing at home, such as mak­ing baby food, prepar­ing break­fast in the morn­ing, and bak­ing with self-made flour because you have gluten or aller­gic mem­bers in your house­hold. You will ben­e­fit great­ly from hav­ing such a pow­er­ful machine in your kitchen. If your chil­dren love ice cream, then Vita­mix will cer­tain­ly make them hap­py, as you can exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent ingre­di­ents and recipes to cre­ate some lip-smack­ing ice creams.

Control Panel and Speeds

The 5200 Stan­dard mod­el con­trol pan­el is very min­i­mal­is­tic yet very func­tion­al. It has a High/Variable speeds option switch on the left, ten (10) vari­able speeds dial in the cen­ter, and an On/Off pow­er­ing switch on the right. So, this blender has 11 speeds – 10 on a vari­able dial and one (1) high speed on the switch.

The ten (10) adjustable speed dial is made of rub­ber and has a soft-touch rota­tion feel. In addi­tion, the ten (10) vari­able speed dial allows users a lot of flex­i­bil­i­ty on how fine­ly the food needs to be blended.

The High-speed mode reg­u­lat­ed by the switch is designed to han­dle heavy-duty jobs such as break­ing the ice and mak­ing ice creams, liq­uidiz­ing smooth­ies quick­ly, mak­ing nuts and milk, or mak­ing hot soups.

This mod­el does not have any Pre-Set Pro­grams. How­ev­er, Vita­mix man­u­fac­tures a very sim­i­lar mod­el with pre-set pro­grams called Vita­mix Stan­dard Pro­grams Blender. It does not have the Pulse mode either but can eas­i­ly per­form puls­ing jobs with the use of the On/Off switch or the vari­able dial that can imi­tate the burst power.

Base Unit and Motor Power

The Vita­mix 5200 base unit is made of durable and strong plas­tic. The base unit hous­es a pow­er­ful indus­tri­al-grade motor that was designed and man­u­fac­tured for Vita­mix in Swe­den (while the Vita­mix blenders are still com­plete­ly designed and assem­bled in the USA). The motor fea­tures 11.5 amp and 1380 Watts (adver­tised 2HP) at peak. The motor rotates the blades at 37,000 RPM (rev­o­lu­tions per minute), which cor­re­sponds to a rota­tion­al speed of 11–240 MPH (miles per hour).

The blender motor has a ball-bear­ing design, which is prob­a­bly much more impor­tant infor­ma­tion than its wattage and RPM. This design lessens the fric­tion of all the con­struc­tion parts, increas­ing the motor’s effi­cien­cy and ser­vice life. In addi­tion, all the motor parts are made of met­al and thus have very high durability.

The Vita­mix 5200 motor also has advanced cool­ing and auto­mat­ic over­load pro­tec­tion sys­tems. The advanced cool­ing sys­tem cools it dur­ing oper­a­tion, and auto­mat­ic over­load pro­tec­tion sys­tems will auto­mat­i­cal­ly shut off the machine if the motor gets over­heat­ed to save it from burn­ing. The machine is designed to cool for about 40 min­utes before the oper­a­tion can be resumed.

Container

The blender comes with a high-pro­file 64-ounce, durable impact, and tem­per­a­ture-resis­tant Tri­tan copoly­ester con­tain­er, which the USA-based East­man Tri­tan Com­pa­ny pro­duces. Tri­tan copoly­ester is a new and advanced bisphenol‑A (BPA) and BPS-free mate­r­i­al, which means it is free from oestro­genic (EA) or andro­genic activ­i­ty (AA). The FDA approves copoly­ester for food and drink containers.

The con­tain­er mea­sures 64 oz. /8 ½ cups on one side and 2L/2000ml also indi­cate Max fill line. The total capac­i­ty of the jar is 80 oz. The con­tain­er has a non-drip spout and an ergonom­ic and soft-grip handle.

It is worth­while to men­tion that all com­mer­cial-grade blenders are designed with poly­car­bon­ate or met­al con­tain­ers. There­fore, the glass is not proofed for high-pow­er loads to which the pow­er­ful blenders will be exposed.

The con­tain­er seats on a rub­ber pad and four rub­ber posts help reduce vibra­tion and ensure the machine’s sta­bil­i­ty dur­ing operation.

Lid: The Vita­mix 5200’s two-part lid is made of mold­ed rub­ber with two tabs fas­ten­ing for secure fit­ting. The lid has a 2″ diam­e­ter hole at its cen­ter, clos­ing with the clear copoly­ester cap. The hole is designed to release steam when pro­cess­ing hot ingre­di­ents or adding extra food dur­ing blending.

Tam­per: The tam­per is made of plas­tic and is designed for remov­ing air pock­ets when blend­ing thick ingre­di­ents. The tool is not need­ed for most gen­er­al tasks but is very use­ful when pro­cess­ing nut but­ter and oth­er non-triv­ial blend­ing tasks.

Suit­able for Small and Large batch­es of Food: The high-pro­file con­tain­er that comes with the Vita­mix 5200 or Stan­dard mod­el fea­tures a nar­row bot­tom that fits 3 inch­es of blades. The nar­row bot­tom, high-pro­file con­tain­ers will not fit under the stan­dard kitchen cab­i­net, but it is the most ver­sa­tile Vita­mix con­tain­er type. This con­tain­er han­dles large vol­umes of food well and process­es equal­ly well in small batch­es. The min­i­mum is ¾ cups for liq­uid blend­ing, with a min­i­mum of 2.5 cups for thick­er mix­ing like nut butter.

The low pro­file does not require you to waste your mon­ey by buy­ing a sep­a­rate 32 oz. or 48 oz. con­tain­er to process small­er batch­es of food.

Blades

The Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard blender came with the inbuilt con­tain­er 3‑inch and inter­sect­ed 4‑prong “wet” type, hard­ened air­craft qual­i­ty stain­less steel blade. The blade is fixed on the con­tain­er’s out­er side with a hard­ened plas­tic dri­ve sock­et. The blade can only be removed with a spe­cial wrench (not includ­ed in the set) if need­ed. How­ev­er, you do not need to remove it because the blade became blunt with use; the blade is as dull as a but­ter knife by design and does not require sharpening.

This “wet” blade is designed to accom­plish both the wet and dry func­tions, includ­ing blend­ing liq­uids, frozen ingre­di­ents, sauces, soups, purees, bat­ters, wet chop­ping, dry grind­ing grain, and knead­ing the dough. How­ev­er, you can buy a dry blade con­tain­er if you do a lot of grinding/ milling or dough kneading.

Ease of Use and Cleaning

Oper­at­ing: It is a very easy-to-use blender; you can pop the con­tain­er (with the built-in blades) onto the base, fill the ingre­di­ents with the soft ingre­di­ents, first fin­ish with the firm and frozen ones, fit the lid, switch it ON.

Using the con­trol pan­el is easy, too. As a rule, the blender should start blend­ing with the switch tog­gled at the Vari­able speed posi­tion and dial knob on speed 1. Then, after start­ing at a low speed, you can select the desired speed with the dial or, after rotat­ing to the high­est 10, push the High/Variable switch to the High posi­tion. The High speed is designed for pro­cess­ing smooth­ies, soups, or whole juices.

Remov­able plug seats on the lid make adding ingre­di­ents or liq­uid while the blender is run­ning has­sle-free. This func­tion works par­tic­u­lar­ly well with the Vita­mix 5200. Oth­er lat­est mod­els with low-pro­file con­tain­ers tend to spill out the liq­uid if you try adding ingre­di­ents while the blender is on tur­bo speed.

Clean­ing: Gen­er­al­ly, this machine is very easy to clean if you blend liq­uids or non-sticky ingre­di­ents. You have to add a few drops of soap into the half-water-filled con­tain­er, blend it on High-speed mode for 20–40 sec­onds, and rinse with hot water. The vor­tex it cre­ates will clean the blades and the sides of the con­tain­er. To keep the con­tain­er clear and uncloudy, wipe it dry with a tow­el or cloth after rins­ing. You can also hand wash the jar with the dish­wash­ing brush and soap.

How­ev­er, the Vita­mix 5200 nar­row bot­tom high pro­file con­tain­er is not the eas­i­est to clean if you are pro­cess­ing thick ingre­di­ents like nut but­ter or hum­mus. The nar­row bot­tom does not allow you to wipe out the sticky remains under the blades. Instead, you would need to use the under-blade scraper or soak the jug for 1–3 min­utes in soapy water, then run the blender a few times at high speed until you get rid of all leftovers.

The con­tain­er is not designed to be washed in the dishwasher.

Vitamix 5200 Standard Optional Accessories

Vita­mix man­u­fac­tures a range of option­al acces­sories which are com­pat­i­ble with the 5200 or Stan­dard model:

The Stain­less Steel Con­tain­er is a new 48 oz. con­tain­er made of stain­less steel and com­pat­i­ble with all full-size Vita­mix blenders.

32 oz. or 48 oz. “WET” Blade Con­tain­ers are designed to process small batch­es of foods. How­ev­er, the 5200 or Stan­dard mod­el comes with a high-pro­file nar­row bot­tom con­tain­er that han­dles the same min­i­mum food batch­es as 32 oz. and 48 oz. wet con­tain­ers. So, the own­er of 5200 mod­els does not usu­al­ly need to buy an extra 32 oz. or 48 oz. “wet” blade container.

32 oz. “DRY” grains Blade Jar is designed for milling, grind­ing, and knead­ing tasks. The “dry” blade is designed to push the vor­tex up, thus pre­vent­ing the cak­ing of flour and mak­ing milling and knead­ing eas­i­er. So it is worth invest­ing in the dry blades con­tain­er if you are like­ly to do a lot of milling and knead­ing of dough.

The Vita­mix Per­son­al Cup Adapter is a sin­gle-serve blender attach­ment for Clas­sic 5200 or Stan­dard Blender, which was released in 2017. The set includes the 20-ounce cup and the adapter tool.

Aer Disc Con­tain­er is designed to make a range of spe­cial cock­tails and oth­er spe­cial tasks such as mud­dling, emul­si­fy­ing, foam­ing, whip­ping, and mak­ing aquafaba.

Per­fect Blend Smart Scale and Recipe App help adjust the Vita­mix recipes to the desired num­ber of serv­ings, ounces, or calo­ries. A free app lets you see nutri­tion­al infor­ma­tion for every ingre­di­ent you use in your recipe.

Under Blade Scraper, you can reach the food stack in hard­ly acces­si­ble parts of your container.

Special Features

Col­or: This mod­el comes in three (3) col­ors: black, red, and white.

Cer­ti­fied Refur­bished: Cer­ti­fied Refur­bished Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard machines (via Ama­zon) are avail­able for those look­ing for the cheap­est Vita­mix option. It will cost $100 ‑120 less than the new one and comes with a five (5) year war­ran­ty. The cer­ti­fied refur­bished blender has a brand-new con­tain­er, blade, and lid with plug and tam­per and comes with a user base that the man­u­fac­tur­er, under strict stan­dards, has tested.

Oper­a­tion out­side of USA/Canada: All Vita­mix blenders sold via USA retail­ers are equipped with a 110–120 volt­age sys­tem and can be oper­at­ed only with an appro­pri­ate volt­age. The machine could be for a lim­it­ed time via the volt­age trans­former. Still, extend­ed use is not rec­om­mend­ed as it can com­pro­mise the gad­gets’ func­tion­al­i­ty and void the war­ran­ty. Thus, con­sumers from regions with the 220–240 volt­age sys­tem are advised to buy this machine through local retail­ers. How­ev­er, the best prices and choice of Vita­mix 5200 220–240 volts machines are avail­able via UK distributors. 

Noise

Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion received from Cus­tomer Ser­vice, the Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard mod­el has a noise lev­el of 92–86 dB (deci­bels). To give you a bet­ter idea of how much noise, here’s a quick com­par­i­son: whis­per­ing pro­duces 15 deci­bels, a nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion — pro­duces 60 deci­bels, and a lawn­mow­er — pro­duces 90 deci­bels. That means that the blender, at its loud­est per­for­mance, will out­put noise just a lit­tle qui­eter than a lawnmower.

It is worth men­tion­ing that tur­bo speed usu­al­ly pro­duces more noise than pro­cess­ing at low speed.

Bonus tips: A rub­ber mat placed under a machine’s base will help reduce the noise.

Warranty and Customer Support

It is a well-built machine and comes with a 7‑year FULL War­ran­ty. The FULL War­ran­ty means that the Com­pa­ny cov­ers all issues (includ­ing ship­ping costs for repair) unless they are due to human mis­use. The Vita­mix war­ran­ty is trans­ferrable and valid even on sec­ond-hand machines but starts from the ini­tial own­er’s time of purchase.

You can acti­vate your war­ran­ty on the Vita­mix web­site online or by ring­ing Vita­mix’s Cus­tomer Sup­port any time from the time of your pur­chase and pro­vid­ing the ser­i­al num­ber locat­ed on the base of your machine.

I can vouch for Vita­mix’s best in busi­ness Cus­tomer Sup­port from my per­son­al expe­ri­ence. They are quick to answer, always help­ful, and very polite. If you have any prob­lems, they trou­bleshoot it with you over the phone, and if the machine has to be sent in for repair, they pro­vide free deliv­ery to the ser­vice cen­ter and back. They even cov­ered some of the issues that I faced due to my mis­use, free of charge.

Vita-Mix Cor­po­ra­tion has a 30-day mon­ey-back guar­an­tee for all their prod­ucts if you do not like them for some reason.

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Packages Include

The Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard mod­el set includes:

• Base unit with 2Hp motor;
• 68 ounces soft-grip Tri­tan copoly­ester container
• Rub­ber lid with remov­able cap;
• Tam­per;
• Get­ting start­ed guide;
• Recipe book;
• War­ran­ty card.

The recipe book has fold­ed for­mat and sort­ed by col­or-labeled dividers into the fol­low­ing groups — Bev­er­ages, Soups, Dips and spreads, Sauces, Bread, Break­fast, Desserts, Dress­ings and mari­nades, and Recipes for Kids.

Each recipe includes detailed instruc­tions on how to fol­low the recipe, prepa­ra­tion, blender pro­cess­ing time, and a set of nutri­tion­al data.

Dimensions

The Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard machine has a foot­print of 8.75 inch­es x 7.25 inch­es, and 20 inch­es is the height of the entire gad­get with the pitch­er and lid on top of the base. It weighs about 11 lbs. Be aware that this machine does not fit under the tra­di­tion­al kitchen cabinet.

This gad­get’s stan­dard 3‑pronged, 120-volt pow­er cord is six feet in length, and the unused sec­tion of it is con­ve­nient­ly stored under the base.

The base unit has four rub­ber feet that make the unit sta­ble and on the counter dur­ing processing.

The ship­ping weight is 16.1 pounds, includ­ing all the acces­sories, user man­u­als, and cookbooks.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• This machine is a very pow­er­ful blender and will break up any­thing that gets into the container.
• It is very ver­sa­tile and per­forms many func­tions such as blend­ing, grind­ing, milling, mak­ing frozen desserts, chop­ping, knead­ing dough, mak­ing hot soups, turn­ing your food prepa­ra­tion, and cook­ing to rival a mas­ter chef.
• It is very easy to use and clean, with a 10-speed con­trol dial and high speed, pro­vid­ing you with excel­lent con­trol over your blending.
• This blender is a very stur­dy and durable machine man­u­fac­tured in the USA and comes with excel­lent Cus­tomer Support.
• This blender is pow­er­ful, capa­ble of heavy-duty loads, and has a long ser­vice life. I know peo­ple who have owned the old­er mod­el of Vita­mix for 15 years, and it is still in per­fect work­ing condition.
• The Vita­mix 5200 mod­el can process small and large batch­es of food bet­ter than the lat­est mod­el of the Vita­mix prod­ucts line. Where­as oth­er mod­els with low-pro­file con­tain­ers might spill out the con­tents, the Vita­mix mod­el allows you to add liq­uids while the machine runs.
• There is a range of extra acces­sories avail­able that are com­pat­i­ble with this model;
• Excep­tion­al 7‑year Full War­ran­ty (new mod­els) and 5‑year Full War­ran­ty (for Cer­ti­fied Refurbished);

Cons:

• It is expen­sive when com­pared to oth­er brands, but you can save some mon­ey if you opt for the refur­bished version;
• This machine does not fit under the stan­dard kitchen cabinets;
• This mod­el does not have a Pulse function;
• This blender is not the newest mod­el of Vita-Mix Cor­po­ra­tion. Still, it costs $200–300 less than the lat­est mod­el and per­forms to the same stan­dard, with some addi­tion­al ben­e­fits over the lat­est models.

Vitamix 5200 Standard Customer Reviews

It is a vet­er­an mod­el with many reviews from many cus­tomers; it has a pre­dom­i­nant­ly very high rat­ing, espe­cial­ly for such an expen­sive machine.

Price

Although the Vita­mix 5200 Stan­dard mod­el is a basic bud­get Vita­mix mod­el, it is not the cheap­est; it is usu­al­ly 15%-20% more expen­sive than oth­er bud­get Explo­ri­an machines, and it usu­al­ly offers FREE ship­ping for the major­i­ty of its prod­ucts, no mat­ter from which retail­er you order them. Fur­ther­more, you do not need to buy an extra Pro­tec­tion Plan because the Vita­mix Full war­ran­ty is applied to all its gen­uine prod­ucts no mat­ter where you buy them from.

Find here the best deal for this gad­get that is reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed. I also advise you to check the Cer­ti­fied Refur­bished Vita­mix 5200 mod­el’s price, which could be a good bud­get solu­tion.

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Summary

The qual­i­ty of this USA-made brand is unpar­al­leled. No doubt, the 5200 Stan­dard machines are built to last, and they could eas­i­ly be your last blender if you do not decide to upgrade to the new and fan­cy mod­els. How­ev­er, even in such an event, you will most like­ly pass your old machine to your friends or fam­i­ly ful­ly func­tion­al. The only dif­fer­ence between the 5200 machines and the new­ly real­ized mod­el is in the “bells and whis­tles range.” The Vita­mix 5200 is still up to date and per­forms all the new and fan­cy Vita­mix mod­el functions.

This machine is per­fect for small and large house­holds as it han­dles small and large batch­es of food equal­ly well. It well suits peo­ple who do a lot of home cook­ing or have spe­cial diet require­ments — gluten-free, aller­gies, or veg­an raw diet. It is a per­fect option for those who wish to buy a ver­sa­tile and pow­er­ful com­mer­cial-type blender but are not keen on splurg­ing on the lat­est mod­el of the Vita­mix brand. So, the 5200 Stan­dard mod­el is worth every pen­ny you pay.

Final­ly, it should be men­tioned that there is a learn­ing curve to mas­ter the Vita­mix machine capa­bil­i­ties; you def­i­nite­ly will not be able to use it to the full extent from scratch. The great recipe book includ­ed in the set will help you tremen­dous­ly famil­iarise your­self with all the “secrets” of this machine. It will give you an insight into how to under­stand the readi­ness of the com­bined ingre­di­ents by their look or what the dif­fer­ent sound pitch­es of motors can tell you about the blend­ing process.

 

Vitamix 5200 Standard vs. Vitamix Explorian E320 and E310 Blenders

The Explo­ri­an blenders were released in 2017 after the new and advanced Ascent prod­uct line. Still, Explo­ri­an E320 and E310 machines were mar­ket­ed as the bud­get Vita­mix mod­els that had the low­est price among all the mod­els. At the same time, in 2017, there was infor­ma­tion that the 5200 Stan­dard mod­el was going to be dis­con­tin­ued soon. Now it is 2020, and the 5200 is still on the mar­ket and still the Vita­mix best­selling mod­el. Nev­er­the­less, the Explo­ri­an machine is also very popular.

The Explo­ri­an line com­pris­es two mod­els, E310 and E320, that are iden­ti­cal but by con­tain­ers only.

So, what is the dif­fer­ence between the 5200 and Explo­ri­an E310 and E320 models?

Func­tion­al­i­ty: Both blenders can per­form the same tasks.

Base Unit and Motor: The Explo­ri­an E310 and E320 mod­el base unit has an upgrad­ed design and is a fusion between the old­er Clas­sic mod­els and new Ascent machines. The Explo­ri­an motor has 2.2HP while the 5200 is 2HP; the dif­fer­ence is insignif­i­cant and does not influ­ence performance.

The con­trol Pan­el: The 5200 has 11 speeds, ten (10) vari­ables, one (1) high, and no Pulse func­tions. The Explo­ri­an has only ten (10) vari­able speeds and a Pulse function.

Con­tain­ers: The 5200 comes with a high pro­file nar­row bot­tom (3 inch­es blade), 68 oz. con­tain­ers. While E310 Explo­ri­an has a 48 oz. low pro­file nar­row bot­tom (3 inch­es blade) jar and E320 low pro­file wide bot­tom (4 inch­es blade) 68 oz. container.

War­ran­ty: The 5200 machine comes with a 7‑year full war­ran­ty; the E320 has the same 7‑year war­ran­ty, while the E310 fea­tures a short­er 5‑year warranty.

Price: The main dif­fer­ence is that the Explo­ri­an is priced at approx­i­mate­ly $100 less than 5200 machines.

	Vita­mix 5200	Vita­mix Explo­ri­an E310	Vita­mix Explo­ri­an E320
Motor	2HP	2.2HP	2.2HP
Con­trols	10 vari­able speeds, high speed, Start/Stop	10 vari­able speeds, Pulse, Start/Stop	10 vari­able speeds, Pulse, Start/Stop
Con­tain­er	64 oz., soft-grip, high pro­file, nar­row bottom.	48 oz., nar­row bottom	64oz., wide bottom.
Blades	3 inch­es inbuilt	3 inch­es inbuilt	4 inch­es inbuilt
Col­or	black, red, white,	black, slate, red	black, red
War­ran­ty	7 years	5 years	7 years
Recipe Book	yes	yes	yes
Dimen­sion	20.5″ x 8.75″ x 7.25″/cm	11 x 8 x 18 in. / 28 x 20 x 46 cm.	11 x 8 x 18 in. / 28 x 20 x 46 cm.
Cord	6ft	4.5 ft / 1.37 m	4.5 ft / 1.37 m

Sum­ma­ry: The Vita­mix 5200, Explo­ri­an E310, and E320 blenders are bud­get machines. The 5200 comes with a high pro­file nar­row bot­tom 64 oz. Although it does not fit under a stan­dard kitchen cab­i­net, it han­dles large and small batch­es of food equal­ly well. The E310 and E320 mod­els fit under stan­dard kitchen cab­i­nets; how­ev­er, the E320 does not han­dle small batch­es of food, and the E310 does not have the capac­i­ty for large batches.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the Vitamix 5200:

What is the horsepower of the Vitamix 5200? 

The Vita­mix 5200 boasts a 2.0 HP (1380 Watts) peak out­put. Notably, the Vita­mix 5200 out­per­forms oth­er blenders with sim­i­lar motor pow­er due to its high­ly effi­cient motor design.

What is the noise level of the Vitamix 5200? 

The noise out­put of the Vita­mix 5200 ranges from 82 to 98 dB, depend­ing on the ingre­di­ents it is pro­cess­ing. For instance, when blend­ing an icy smooth­ie, it can reach 98 dB due to the crush­ing of ice or frozen ingre­di­ents. On aver­age, it oper­ates at 85–90 dB, which is rough­ly equiv­a­lent to the noise lev­el of a stan­dard lawn mower.

What sets the Vitamix 5200 apart from the Vitamix 5300?

The Vita­mix 5300 has a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion 2.2 horse­pow­er motor, while the Vita­mix 5200 fea­tures an old­er 2 horse­pow­er motor.

The Vita­mix 5300 comes with a wide-bot­tomed 64 oz. con­tain­er, while the Vita­mix 5200 has nar­row-bot­tomed con­tain­ers. Thus, the Vita­mix 5200 is able to process small­er batch­es of food effi­cient­ly and han­dle large batch­es, as well as the Vita­mix 5300 model.

There are more dis­crep­an­cies between them, such as the pulse fea­ture and the height dif­fer­ence, but both mod­els deliv­er sim­i­lar per­for­mance and qual­i­ty results.

Is the Vitamix 5200 still a recommended blender to purchase? 

Absolute­ly, the Vita­mix 5200 is still a very pop­u­lar and reli­able blender that has remained the stan­dard for pro chefs and blender enthu­si­asts. Even though, it may not have all the mod­ern fea­tures of new­er mod­els, the Vita­mix 5200 shows absolute­ly iden­ti­cal per­for­mance and ver­sa­til­i­ty as the newest Vita­mix models.

Why is the Vitamix 5200 still considered the best blender for 2023? 

It is one of the cheap­est Vita­mix mod­els, yet it per­forms sim­i­lar func­tions and blend­ing qual­i­ty as the newest Vita­mix mod­els. Besides, it excels in pro­cess­ing small­er food batch­es, a task for which new­er mod­els are not designed.

Which Vitamix models closely resemble the Vitamix 5200? 

The Vita­mix Explo­ri­an 310 mod­el is clos­est to the Vita­mix 5200 in terms of spec­i­fi­ca­tions. Both mod­els fea­ture a min­i­mal­ist design and excel at pro­cess­ing small­er ingre­di­ent batch­es. How­ev­er, the 5300 mod­el was specif­i­cal­ly designed for Cost­co and Ama­zon and has a short­er war­ran­ty period.

How old is the Vitamix 5200? 

The Vita­mix 5200 mod­el was ini­tial­ly intro­duced in 2007. Nonethe­less, it is still the most pop­u­lar Vita­mix mod­el due to its out­stand­ing performance.

What can I create with the Vitamix 5200? 

The Vita­mix 5200 is prob­a­bly the most ver­sa­tile blender avail­able today. It can pre­pare a wide range of recipes, includ­ing smooth­ies, hot soups from cold ingre­di­ents, sauces, dips, nut but­ters, frozen drinks and desserts, and more.

Is it suitable for making green smoothies? 

Absolute­ly! The Vita­mix 5200’s pow­er­ful motor and sharp blades can effort­less­ly blend leafy greens into smooth and creamy green smoothies.

Can it handle ice and frozen ingredients? 

Absolute­ly! The Vita­mix 5200 is the best blender for crush­ing ice and can eas­i­ly pre­pare cock­tails, slushies, and oth­er icy bev­er­ages, includ­ing ice cream and frozen desserts.

Can I use it to make hot soups?

Yes, the Vita­mix 5200 can blend ingre­di­ents at such high speeds that it can heat up soups through fric­tion alone. Sim­ply blend on the high­est speed for a few min­utes, and your soup will be hot and ready to serve.

Is it suitable for grinding coffee beans or making nut butter? 

Cer­tain­ly, the Vita­mix 5200 can grind cof­fee beans and cre­ate nut but­ter. Its pow­er­ful motor and durable blades can tack­le these chal­leng­ing tasks.

How do I clean the blender? Is the container dishwasher-safe? 

Yes, the 64-ounce con­tain­er of the Vita­mix 5200 is dish­wash­er-safe. How­ev­er, even with­out dish­wash­er clean­ing, the Vita­mix 5200 is straight­for­ward. Fill the con­tain­er with warm water and add a drop of dish soap, then blend on high for a minute. Rinse thoroughly.

Does it come with a warranty? 

Cer­tain­ly, the Vita­mix 5200 comes with a 7‑year full war­ran­ty and is sup­port­ed by the best Cus­tomer Ser­vice in the industry.