This blender looks wonderful and holds a lot of liguid, easy to clean and very sturdy. I did notice that it sometimes has difficulty blending chunks of fruit and needs to be stirred a few times to get the right position to blend. And it's also a bit noisy when blending. But over all, I'm delighted to have it.

I tried a Cuisinart blender at a friends house and was impressed by the way it absolutely destroyed ice in a frozen drink. Reveiws of this product on Amazon, however, disuaded me from buying it and instead persuaded me to buy the Hamilton Beach. It doesn't work as well and leaves small chunks of ice in the drink despite 30 seconds of "blending" and "pulsing".

This blender is a dream. It is easy to use, with two speeds. (I never could tell the difference between Frappe and Whip anyway.) Its looks good with its designer lines. I got the red blender, and it is an accent piece in my kitchen. It is also well thought out in that its pitcher (glass) has a wide base, making it useful to serve from. Hamilton-Beach has done a great job with its Eclectrics line of appliances--they are well made, fun to use, come with a great warranty and all have great looks about them.

I received this blender for x-mas last year. It has some nice design features (good heavy base to prevent tipping, measuring cup built into the cap). However, I experienced the same problems that others here have -- the blender doesn't do well with anything thick like milkshakes. It just shoves everything against the sides of the pitcher and spins helplessly, forcing you to stop and manual stir everything back towards the blades and restart. While it worked OK for a while, the cutter unit mysteriously jammed after about 9 months.

I have NEVER had a blender that could make a great smoothie. Always chunks of frozen fruit, blocks of ice, but if I leave this easy to use off-on machine on long enough, it about gets it done. It a beautiful color, easy to clean, no leaking (yet) and hopefully the blade rotor on the underside will hold up -- I've had this part go on 100% of blenders. I'll know next year!