Farberware FSSB100A 2-Speed Stick Blender with Mini-Chopper Attachment

We recieved this for a wedding gift and love it! It comes with the stick blender, tall measuring cup, and mini food processor attachment, and a plate to attach it to the wall. The stick blender is excellent for making smoothies. We load up the ingredients into the measuring cup, stick the blender in, and have two perfect smoothies in about 45 seconds, without the mess of using a regular blender. This out performs our smoothie maker on small jobs like this. We also like it for pureeing tomatoes for a quick homemade salsa. It is very easy to clean, just rinse the attatchment (it pops off from the motor). I have also used the mini chopper to make small quantities of pesto and gremolata. This works much better than other mini choppers that I have owned. The only thing that I didn't care for in this package was the wall attachment. It only holds to blender stick and motor, leaving you to store all the other parts some place else. I just keep the whole assembly in a box so that I...Read more

Yes powerful, but:
-power buttons only work when pushed and *held* on; once released, blade stops (and they do need a rather hard push)
-since it's a bit heavy, it's hard to hold and press those buttons at the same time
-chopping container indicates level of contents it can hold; not very much...
Because of the above, it's not used as intended...which translates to not very often.

Look at some other models to compare the weight, etc. If you can't find one that has better properties for the price, my recommendation would be to spend the extra money for one that does.

I was given one of these blenders and have been REALLY unimpressed. The "stick" attachment won't stay in the handle part, so I have to hold it there to use it (like a previous reviewer pointed out... you have to hold down the power button, so that means I need two hands to operate the blender). The "mini chopper," like a previous reviewer pointed out, doesn't hold much at all and I haven't found it very effective - I have to keep opening it up and shifting around the contents to get consistent chopping or mixing. I've had the darn thing for 3 years and I'm finally upgrading - I'm just sorry I ever owned the thing in the first place!