Regular blender or high-performance super blender? If you're right into your blending and looking for versatility, a high-powered blender ticks all the boxes. If you're only interested in blending soft foods and making the odd smoothie, a regular blender at a fraction of the price might be more up your alley.
Our kitchen lab puts both types to the test, along with personal blenders designed to blend single-serve beverages.
On this page:
Our expert testers
With 30+ years of experience our home economist Fiona Mair knows her way around a kitchen and has endless knowledge about kitchen appliances. Fiona and our test coordinator Chantelle Dart go from testing large appliances like ovens and cooktops to smaller benchtop appliances like hand mixers.
How we choose what we test
What makes us choose one blender over another? As with most of our product testing, our aim is to test the most popular models on the market and what you're most likely to see in the retailers.
We survey manufacturers to find out about their range of models, we check market sales information and we also check for any member requests to test specific models.
From this information, we put together a final list that goes to our buyers. They then head out to the retailers and purchase each product, just as a normal consumer would. We do this so we can be sure the products are the same as any consumer would find them and not 'tweaked' in any way.
Some blenders are capable of creating a hot soup from friction alone. We test and rate the result if this is part of their claim.
We put green smoothies through a fine sieve to assess how well the blenders process leafy vegetables such as kale and spinach.
How we test
Blenders come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and price points, from high-performance blenders like Vitamix that can cost more than $1600 through to cheap $50 Anko blenders from Kmart. Personal 'single-serve' blenders from Nutribullet and Nutri Ninja that let you create a healthy snack on the run are also available.
Blending, crushing and processing
Fiona and Chantelle conduct a range of performance tests on all blenders.
These include assessing how evenly they blend a soft food, seeing how well they crush ice, and processing kale to assess the machine's ability to blend this tough green leafy vegetable.
We also conduct a number of tests depending on the blender's core function.
Chopping carrots
We assess standard blenders' ability to chop carrots in a uniform manner, without leaving large chunks behind or conversely turning them into purée.
Green smoothie
For personal blenders, we process fruits and vegetables and then put the resulting smoothie through a fine sieve, measuring how much is left behind to see how well the blender has processed them.
Nut butter and sorbet
High-performance blenders are more versatile than regular blenders so we conduct these extra tests on them.
Additional high performance tests
We also test and assess the following functions on high-performance blenders, if they claim to be able to perform them:
- blending a raw vegetable soup which becomes hot through friction
- pizza dough
- dry milling nuts
- grating parmesan cheese.
Ease of use
Fiona and Chantelle check the general comfort of each blender, assessing weight, chute size (if applicable), how well it sits on the bench and how easy it is to remove material from around the blade. They also assess how easy the controls are to use and how easy it is to clean the unit.
Personal blenders are also rated on how easy it is to travel with the cup and assemble and disassemble the cup.
Nutritional analysis
We've previously analysed the nutritional analysis of personal blenders (as well as juicers). Our results show little difference between models, so we don't conduct this test anymore.
Test criteria explained
CHOICE Expert Rating
The CHOICE Expert Rating is made up of:
- Performance (60%)
- Ease of use (40%)
Our final ratings are only comparable by type (high performance, standard or personal) as we can't conduct all tests on all models (for example a cheap personal blender is unsuitable for making a nut butter). However you can compare individual test results across blender types, if scores are available.
Our test lab
We maintain a kitchen lab that is up to date with the latest reference machines and calibrated measurement tools for our testers to bring you the right results.
Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
