KitchenAid 5-Speed Blender with 48-Ounce Glass and 24-Ounce Accessory Jar, Candy Apple Red

After parading through several blenders over the past 20 years, we finally found one that does everything we want it to and so much more! It really does crush ice! A real advantage was the additional mini blender jar for small jobs. What a fabulous find just in time for the holidays!! We absolutely love this!

I received this as a gift about three weeks ago. This blender has a much more sturdy feel than the 70 dollar Oster Blender I've had for three years (still working)...I make green smoothies daily and that was hard on my Oster, but it did the job without any issues.

This blender has VERY large glass container that I like. The other review was spot on about NOT being able to start off slow. There are five speeds. When you load the blender, you have to make sure you have the lid on tight because the blender apparently is programmed to attempt to start off slow but then quickly rev up to high, and this all happens in a nano-second! It doesn't work very well as everything blasts to the top.

I do notice that this blender doesn't struggle to blend the greens, carrots I put in it like the Oster did, however, I still find larger bits of carrot in my smoothie that the Oster never had a problem with. As powerful as this blender is, I'm amazed that there are still a few...Read more

Comparing this to my old and much loved Kitchenaid ksb5wh, which lasted for about ten years under heavy daily use. It's not as good, for two reasons:

1. It's tricky to put the jar assembly together correctly. There is a movable plastic collar on the bottom of the coupler that needs to collapse in order for the jar to fit on the blender base. The collar doesn't always collapse, even when the jar looks and feels properly assembled. And you need to dump all your ingredients out of the jar before you can fix it. So, you need to put the jar on the blender base before you start adding ingredients, each time you use it, to make sure it will sit correctly.

2. The base is larger but less dense than the ksb5. It "walks" a bit on the counter under a heavy load, which ksb5 never did. You could blend a small engine block in the ksb5 and it would come out smooth 'n creamy.

On the other hand: it does do a good job of blending, especially ice and...Read more