Total Classic Original Blender - WildSide+ Jar (90 oz) - Professional-Grade Power - 6 Pre-programmed Cycles - 10-speeds - Black

First, I offer a word of caution to buyers out there. This product is the Blendtec Total Blender, the current model on Blendtec's website as of 2012. This is the one you want because of additional programs and other features. Sadly, Amazon is also offering the older HP3A unit for a few dollars less, I made that mistake and ended up returning it. It looks almost identical, and you have to look at the button panel in enlarged view to see the difference. Anyway, I love the Blentec total blender, it is a very reliable tool that has earned its place on my counter daily. I had a Vitamix previously, but I found it to be clumsy to use by comparison. Basically the Vitamix is a manual blender, very rugged, but its lack of automation makes it hard to get consistent repeatable results especially when you are doing multiple batches. The best part of the Blendtec is its programmed buttons provide a repeatable consistent performance, that guarantees the same product each blend. Also, the Wildside jar is my favorite. Not simply because of its large capacity, but with its 4 in. Blade it makes really short work of anything you ask it to blend. It also heats food faster because the tips of the longer blade travel faster through the material than a shorter blade would thereby generating more friction. The key difference in the 2 blenders is the plunger in the Vitamix, and the lack of same in the Blendtec. The major technical difference is that the spinning blades and square jar design in the Blendtec create a downward liquid vortex, sucking your material into the blades and eliminating the need for a plunger, whereas the blades on the Vitamix (and basically every other blender made) tend to blow your blended material upwards away from the blades and it needs a plunger to push the material down into the blades. In a clear vote of confidence for this superior design, a few years ago Vitamix blatantly copied Blendtec's patented square jar design in an effort to get the vortex performance, but they ultimately lost a $24 million lawsuit and were forced to drop the product and square jar concept from their line. [..] So basically, if you see any commercial blender with a square jar, it is a Blendtec or one of their subsidiary companies. An important component of successful, repeatable results with the Blendtec is proper loading order of your ingredients. Liquid and soft ingredients first, then hard or frozen items on top. This allows the blender to quickly liquefy the soft ingredients, thereby immediately forming that strong vortex to suck the other harder material down into the blades. This makes for completely efficient blending, noticeably faster than identical ingredients in the Vitamix. If you do not load the ingredients in this order, grinding the hard items first will not form an efficient vortex, and you may have to stop the machine and tamp down the material. In this scenario, the Vitamix with its plunger will work without stopping. Understanding this may leave you with the impression that the Vitamix is more versatile, allowing the user to throw whatever ingredient they want into the bowl without regard for order or hardness of the item. This is true enough, but in that case it takes manual intervention in either unit to get a blend when you load items outside the recommended liquid/soft to hard order. The great advantage of the Blendtec is that it will allow anyone to get completely consistent results. The programs under the buttons vary time and motor speed precisely, and shut off when the cycle is finished. Vitamix relies on an entirely manual set of analog controls, and therefore require the full attention of the operator, making it nearly impossible to get consistent results realistically. This is especially true when doing long blends, like making hot soups, where the friction of the blades passing through the material generates heat. Having a consistent timed process ensures you do not over process and overheat the soup, killing the raw food value of the ingredients. Using a thermometer, I can get within a degree or two every time with the programmed process buttons of the Blendtec. To do this with the Vitamix is complete babysitting, making it unrealistically difficult. Understand that a Blendtec program button is not a simple timer. It also changes motor speed at predefined points. Trying to do this combination of time and motor speed change with the manual analog controls of the Vitamix is nearly impossible. Certainly not something you want to do when you are making multiple batches of a recipe to serve a large number of people. This is one of the obvious reasons the commercial Blendtec models are the overwhelming choice in restaurants, where you can load it, hit a button and walk away to do some other task, confident that the unit will do it's job with unwavering consistency. Now I cannot speak to all the things each unit is capable of, as I only do smoothies, juices, soups and ice creams. I cannot speak to nut butters or grains, seeds or basically anyone using the alternate jar recipes. I assume that the majority of the people and their uses for the blender will be similar to mine and therefore hope this review was valuable.

I LOVE this blender. We use it at least twice a day. It will literally turn ice into snow. It makes perfectly smooth smoothies. It can make hot soups and great ice cream. Margaritas and Daiquiris.......fantastic! Yes, it is a bit expensive but it does so much more than any other blender (except Vitamix) that it's worth it. You will never need another one. As far as the battle between Vitamix and Blendtec, in my opinion, each one is great and it all comes down to personal taste. Each is very powerful and each has a great warranty. I chose Blendtec because I like the looks much better, it will fit under my cabinets and it was cheaper. You can't go wrong either way but if you want the best, there are only two and in my opinion Blendtec is the best.

My husband and I spent a lot of time researching several blender/juicers and decided to go with this one for several reasons: *Easy to clean - we did NOT want to spend time taking pieces apart to clean them; this machine cleans up very quick and easy!! *Made in the USA with a 7 year warranty - quality, reliability and pride; need we say more? *Powerful! 3 horsepower motor - 1,560 watts; there are several videos on YouTube that show you how amazing this machine is. *6 pre-programmed cycles for juicing, smoothies, ice cream, etc. Machine automatically knows when to speed up, slow down and shut off automatically based on your setting. You don't have to stand by the machine and babysit it! *Jar is BPA free.

My old Kitchenaid died, and the updated model is a huge, heavy monster that is too bif to fit in my appliance garage. This Blendtec had awesome reviews on every platform I checked. It is also the most powerful blender for its low-profile size, so I was able to justify the expense. Cleaning is also a breeze! Love it! Makes awesome protein shakes - like a Wendy's frosty, and I can't wait to try the soup making setting - the friction creates the heat.

Please read this review before you consider purchasing this Blendtec unit; I must say that I am truly sorry I didn't invest in a Vitamix unit instead. I seldom write reviews, but I truly believe that this is necessary to get this out there for those of you considering investing your hard earned money into this machine. I purchased this Blendtec through Amazon (not a third party vendor) back in November of 2014 as an investment, this is less than a year ago. Anyhow, problems with the unit began to arise almost immediately after the first use. I noticed that my unit began to produce a burning smell, which I later saw it was actually producing smoke between the pitcher and base unit. Upon further inspection I noticed that the plastic gasket that holds the stainless steel spindle had been fused into the plastic pitcher (this is what causes the shards/shavings of black plastic to flake off). The first time I had a problem with my Wildside jar (comes standard with the unit) with this issue, I contacted Blendec customer service, they were very pleasant and were happy to send me out a free replacement jar (they also mentioned that I have an 8 year warranty), but they mentioned nothing of a known issue with their current containers/jars. The way I see it the current construction of this Blendtec unit is defective as the immense heat (apparently you can make hot soup in this thing) melts the plastic gasket into the plastic pitcher/container, not only causing friction and further problems as far as the spindle movement (it should be free spinning according to Blendtec Reps). Today the same thing issue occurred with he Twister Jar as I was making a protein shake (just milk and powder). When I called Blendec today I spoke with a less than enthusiastic and seemingly apathetic representative (but in her defense, maybe she was having a bad day or just had a really bad previous call) that advised me that there is known issues with their jars both current Wildside and Twister jars. After I explained to her what I thought the issue was (plastic gasket melting into plastic container/jar, she concurred with my analysis, she also advised me that Blendtec is aware of the issue and is taking the proper action to rectify the issue, but she wouldn't give much information aside from that (no release dates for the new container nor any mention of sending everyone that purchased a defective container with a complimentary free upgraded container/jar(s)). Anyhow, I am extremely disappointed with this Blendtec experience.

You can’t go wrong with this brand. Love the bigger size jar. Great product!

Flinched at the high price but soooo glad I took the leap! This is unlike any other regular blender we’ve had over the years. Very versatile, it make’s beautiful smoothies of course with more volume than our old machine, and using the pulse feature chops veggies, makes chunky applesauce, etc. We’re anxious to try the hot soup feature next. The machine is noisy but it’s so fast and powerful that it’s done in no time. Looks professional on the kitchen counter too.

I only bought this blender because my 15 year old Blendtec failed. Unfortunately, the 15 year old blender jar sprang a leak, and the liquid made its way inside the blender base and didn't play well with the electrical components. Had this not happened, I am confident my 15 year old Blendtec would still be working great. Before purchasing the replacement Blendtec, I tried a high-end but less expensive blender. It wasn't the same though. Blending with the other blender took significantly longer, and it had super sharp blades that cut me once when cleaning it. I finally decided to make the investment and buy another Blendtec. I absolutely love it and highly recommend Blendtec. You can't go wrong with this product. Just be sure to keep an eye on your blender jars and replace them if they ever start leaking. Again, it took 15 years before our blender jar sprang a leak.