Oster 6854 14-Speed Blender, Brushed Nickel

 (20 customer reviews)

Put 3 or 4 ice cubes in and they crushed easily. Add more, no problem, add more, machine starts just spinning in place. Now if you add frozen berries, blades still spinning with no action. Add liquid, good results. Add one frozen berry at a time and you get a nice smoothy. If mixture gets too thick, will not blend but just spins blades. I put in a can of sweet potatos added some water, turned dial to "baby food", no blending, blades spinning. Added a LOT more water, and it worked beautifully. I said it's inconsistant because it works great if you keep stirring and poking the ingredients down toward the blades or add enough liquid or make sure you add the frozen things first but not too many of them or one at a time after you've added liquid. Seems like a lot of work but I have nothing else to compare it to. My only other blender is 18 year old oster and couldn't even handle one ice cube so this seems like an improvement. Still might take it back to BBB and try another...Read more

The blender appears to be well designd and well made. I originally opted for a "fancier" unit, but upon discovering that these more expensive designer units have the blades held by a plastic housing, which invariably cracks - bought this one instead. So far it looks like I made a smart buy!!!

This worked great for a few uses. It even crushed ice effectively and I liked the pulse function. I agree with someone else that the collar at the base is lame and difficult to deal with.

Then the dial stopped working. Wouldn't turn right of the middle. I thought maybe it was stuck, so I pulled on it *gently* and the whole dial broke off.

So now I have a rather large paperweight. Guess I know that I need to spend more money on a blender next time.

Thanks, Oster!