The Best Blender for Your Money
If you’re shopping for a blender, you naturally want the best blender for your money. If you only use a blender a couple of times a year and it spends most of the time sitting in a cabinet someplace, then you can probably get by with some $35 blender from a big-box store. However, if you use a blender on a regular basis, those cheap ones won’t hold up and you’ll need to replace it every few months.
If you’re going to do a fair amount of blending, you’ll need to invest some money in a quality blender.
In the video above, America’s Test Kitchen tests and compares the following five high-end blenders.
⦁ Blendtec Designer 725
⦁ Breville The Boss – (discontinued)
⦁ KitchenAid Pro Line Series Blender with Thermal Control Jar
⦁ Vitamix 5200
⦁ Vitamix Professional Series 750
Some of the high-end blenders on the market sell for $700 or more. The good news is that it’s not really necessary to spend that much money. The most expensive models have certain bells and whistles that you don’t really need.
For example, one of the models has a cavitation warning that alerts you when an air pocket forms above the blades which prevents blending. This is unnecessary because you can easily hear the difference. When an air pocket forms above the blades, the blades move faster and the machine makes a higher-pitched sound, so there’s no need for the machine to alert you.
Some of the higher-priced models also have an LCD touchscreen, but in their testing, they found that it was not very responsive, especially when they wanted to adjust the speed.
The higher-priced models also have preset buttons that allow you to push a button and walk away while the machine does the rest. There are buttons for things like crushed ice, smoothies, and even self-cleaning functions.
In their tests, the people at America’s Test Kitchen found that these presets are also unnecessary. Crushing ice and making smoothies can be done in just a few seconds, so there’s really no need to be able to press one button, walk away and come back later.
In previous tests, the Vitamix 5200 was their favorite high-end blender for the money and it also happens to be less expensive than the others because it doesn’t have the preset functions or the other bells and whistles. Those extra features cost extra money, and they found that those extra features are really unnecessary. But how does the Vitamix 5200 stand up to the other machines in terms of power?
Well, the Vitamix 5200 is the least powerful machine on the list of blenders they tested. But what they found was that the power of the machine doesn’t matter nearly as much as the shape of the jar.
The Vitamix 5200 did a better job of blending than the more expensive, more powerful machines. The reason why is because it has a taller, narrower jar. That jar shape creates a vortex so your ingredients stay closer to the blades and get blended more efficiently.
The Vitamix 5200 has been the favorite high-end blender for the money of America’s Test Kitchen for years, and after new tests against new opponents, this blender came out on top again.
