I ordered this and beat myself up for spending so much money on a blender...then I made my first smoothie with it and I immediately forgave myself 1000 times over!!!!! There is absolutely no comparison between the Blendtec and any other blender, food processor or juicer I have ever experienced. This is one Mean Machine and I love it! If you are debating because of price, I recommend you give in and buy it. You will save yourself hundreds of dollars in other products over time...plus, you'll just be so happy every time you use it!! :)

I have now made almost 200 smoothies with this thing. It does work, most of the time. Here are the issues with this blender that can grind up an iPhone. As if that's what we buy a blender for.

Here are the ingredients I use for the majority of my smoothies:
14-16 ounces of skim milk
2 scoops of protein powder
1/2 a frozen banana
approx 1 cup of frozen berries (organic 4 berry mix)
small handful of almonds and cashews

Design issue #1 - The splined connection between the drive motor and the blender is seriously flawed. This drive system creates some serious torque and will cause the pitcher to rock itself right off the base if you do not hold it down. When I wipe the base down after blending, there is metal dust that has been generated by the grinding of the gears. I'm not sure how long this drive system will last seeing that it's being ground down with every blend.

Design issue #2 - This issue is related to #1. There is no locking mechanism to attach the pitcher to the blender base. I have a Sears Kenmore blender made in the '60's that has a locking pitcher. Why wouldn't Blendtec make this with a locking pitcher seeing that this blender can blend plastic and metal. It is just seriously bad engineering that this wouldn't have a locking pitcher. Period. YOU WILL HAVE TO HOLD THE PITCHER DOWN UNLESS YOU WANT A DISASTER IF YOU BLEND ANYTHING FROZEN OR ADD NUTS.

Design issue #3 - The pitcher design itself is stupid and contributes to the extreme vibration, increased heat generation and inevitable self destruction of this blender. Why the 'wildside' square design? What makes the smashing of your smoothie components better than a simple vortex design of a round blender? This stupid square design also generates much more heat while blending and I have found that, on occasion, the smoothie will almost be warm by the time it's done blending. As stated earlier, my 1960 Kenmore model has a motor that is 1/4 the power of the Blendtec and it is able to grind all of my smoothie components into a liquid mixture in less time and with much less heat generated.

Design issue #4 - This flaw is created by all of the previous flaws. Because the previous design flaws create increased heat, the blender itself will begin to emit the foul burning electrical odor that will taint the taste of anything you eat for the rest of the day. This may not happen every time and I am still fiddling with liquid quantities to try and avoid this. The heat will also occasionally turn your smoothie into a foamy mess that has the consistency of thick alka-selzer. Disgusting

Design issue #5 - The lid for the pitcher. Terrible, just terrible. It doesn't seal to the pitcher without some serious effort to insure all of the rubber sides are over the plastic pitcher, it has a plastic 'fill' port that doesn't properly seal to the rubber lid and therefore will allow leakage to blow right through and the rubber used for the lid is some butyl rubber design that has a texture to it that doesn't allow you to dry it with a normal dish towel. It will just have to sit and drain when you wash it. And forget using dish soap and water and the blender to clean the pitcher unless you want soapy water all over the place as the lid doesn't seal well enough to allow this.

Like stated previously, before purchasing the Blendtec I had been using an old 'Made in the USA' Sears Kenmore blender for years and have made 100's of smoothies in it with zero problems. The only reason I bought it was the fact that I think the old blender may be on the way out after 57 years of use. And I have made blending adjustments to try and minimize the vibration, heat generation and leakage issues inherent in this lousy design. I now run the mixture on low for 15 seconds before using the smoothie setting for the last 60. And believe me, I need all 75 seconds of blend as the smashing design quite often leaves me with large chunks of frozen fruit even after this extended time. All in all, this thing may do the job for now but I would never recommend a Blendtec to anyone. Too many serious design flaws.

I never thought I would spend nearly $300 on a blender, but this one is worth every penny.

I compared Blendtec to Vitamix, but even the shortest regular Vitamix would not fit under our kitchen cabinets, and the Blendtec appears to be a better, more elegant design. It has an 8 year warranty to both the base and jar, one more year than Vitamix. It is also more ergonomic: the control buttons face upward, and all the switchgear, save the on/off switch in the back, are sealed, thus protected from spills and easier to clean.

The 5 sided, "wildside" jar is high-quality polycarbonate, light, with clear English and Metic volume markings on the side. It works amazingly well. You never have to push anything down to the blades, the asymmetrical vortex created by the 5 sides and the blades turns and churns anything and everything you put in there. The vortex created is amazingly strong and violent, moving not just around in a horizontal circle, but up and down in a kind vertical plunging wave.

The blades are dull, which seems counter-intuitive, but again, they work amazingly well. They appear to be like airplane wings with winglets, and they suck whatever is in the jar with great force downward toward them. Thus whatever is in the jar is completely and utterly pulverized and blended within seconds. Even slick fruit skins, like cherry skins, are blended to the tiniest particles. The hardest, purest ice is blended completely fine, no crunchy particles at all. Smoothies are really, really smooth, as smooth or smoother than the ones blended professionally at smoothie shops.

The motor is very powerful. It feels important to press the top of the jar onto the base at the beginning of a cycle because the torque of the motor and the blades is so strong it feels like it could knock the jar off the base, although maybe not. I'm afraid to try. Once it does the initial mash of the big ingredients then it feels safe to take your hand off. The blender itself is not that noisy, but because of it's power, with big ingredients in the jar it does make a lot of noise. The blade assembly attaches to the base with a direct metal sprocket connection, very solid, no possibility of slippage. All the power gets to the blade assembly which does its work with startling alacrity.

An amazing, well-designed product which I hope will provide years of service.

Best blender ever for smoothies. Does an amazing job with all types of fruits and vegetables. The end result is so smooth, no other blender I have used has come close to this consistency. It's pretty darn loud though, but I will over look that for the level of performance it has. So far no issues with the seal/gasket I have seen from other people.

This is a great blender. This is the second one we've purchased. it's a gift for a family member. I've had mine 6 years. Blendtec has great customer service. We contacted them because after 6 years of use the seal at the bottom of the jar started to leak. I contacted Blendtec by email
and explained the problem. The next morning I had an email that a new jar was on the way. 2 days later I was back in business.
I love being able to just push the smoothie or soup button and it just works I don't have to monitor it and keep adjusting like I did with the vitamix that it replaced.