Travel cups are perfect for on-the-go breakfast or post/pre-workout shakes, and the 8-oz. Grinding cup is the perfect size for cheeses or bread—with it’s special lid you just shake and go! Hamilton Beach Blenders are affordable entry-level blending machines that come with unbeatable 3-year warranty coverage. The Hamilton Beach Smoothie Blender, in particular, features a 700-watt motor capable of crushing ice. It’s equipped with an automatic program for making smoothies with a generous 40 oz (1.2 L) glass pitcher.
Design, usability, and features This blender has a height of 14.5 inches, an 8.5-inch depth, and a 7-inch width. It has a 48-ounce glass pitcher and black and brushed silver finish. The overall design is very simple, but it’s sturdily built and it looks much nicer than its $40 price tag would suggest. The Hamilton Beach Power Elite is well-designed with great functionality. Just add any liquid (nutritious or decidedly not), followed by any other ingredients, choose a setting and let ‘er rip! The company’s patented Wave Action system means your yummy concoction-to-be is continuously pulled down into the blades for consistently smooth results.
It’s therefore small and compact enough to fit anywhere. At 1.72 pounds, it is lighter than average, allowing for easier transportation. The light weight, however, also means your blender lacks the necessary sturdiness to help it stand firm during intensive tasks.
Even so, I was a little skeptical that the single button and single speed on this personal blender could truly be effective. I also made spinach pesto in the Hamilton Beach blender. To start, I added the spinach, walnuts, garlic cloves, cheese, and olive oil and then pulsed it 15 times. Each time it took about 60 pulses to get to a reasonable pesto consistency, but it was still a bit on the chunky side. Between every 15 pulses, I mixed the ingredients with a spatula to make sure that it blended the pesto evenly.
On my frozen fruit smoothies I was surprised at how effective the Hamilton Beach blender was at completely pureeing even the chilliest chunks of fruit. While the blend time was definitely longer when using frozen fruit, it was extremely effective. Both the KitchenAid and Breville blenders won this test by a long shot. The KitchenAid and the Breville actually turned the block into larger, more edible shredded-cheese-esque pieces. That means that it had a couple of small chunks of strawberry left over after I ran the auto smoothie setting.
The user manual suggests crushing cubed ice right after it’s removed from the freezer and to make sure that no pieces are stuck together. This definitely helped the process along, but it still took a lot of pulsing to get the ice to a uniformly crushed state. This is a genuine replacement mixing shaft designed for use with Hamilton Beach drink mixers.
Look for one with a cord wrap, to keep things neat and tidy in the cabinet or when sitting out on the counter. Since a lot of blenders come with an ice crush setting, this seemed Hamilton Beach Blenders online discount store like an important test to conduct. So I tossed ice cubes, ice cubes in water, and bagged ice into the Hamilton Beach for three different measures of ice crushing performance.
Jar assembly locks into the blender base and holds the foods and liquids being blended. This jar is made out of clear glass and it is sold individually. Please note lid, collar and a bottom coupling are all sold separately. In our tests, the KOIOS Bullet made a serving of protein shake better than most similarly-priced blenders we’ve tried, including the Hamilton Beach. More impressively, there was no notable difference between its smoothies and those produced by other pricier machines, though the process took a bit more effort. For the price, this is a decent option if you want a nearly-no-fuss machine for simple blends and are willing to put in the physical effort for a thorough process.
The motor’s build quality is a little bit better but doesn’t look as sturdy as other blenders we’ve tested and lacks the firmness to ensure optimal stability. In this test, the Hamilton Beach took 3 mins 45 secs to yield a portion of protein shake, which is far longer than average. The mixture came out slightly coarse due to a smattering of unblended dried blueberries, but since all the oatmeal and almonds were entirely liquified, it wasn’t too lumpy or unpleasant to drink.
The Hamilton Beach wasn’t able to power through ice cubes, causing the final outcome to come out almost pristine, but this is typical for this type of personal blender. If you want fluffy, snow-like crushed ice or desire to incorporate ice into your smoothies, we recommend considering a higher-powered blender, such as the NutriBullet. We tested the Hamilton Beach against several low-range personal blenders, but this machine was surprisingly the only one that didn’t pass even a single test. With its weak motor and small blending blade, it failed to blend the foods completely, resulting in grainy, rough mixtures.