5 Blender Show-Down: Abusive Lab Test (With Video!)

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The vast majority of Hamilton Beach blenders cost less than $50 each, but the company makes some top-shelf appliances as well. This “commercial" blender has a one-horsepower motor that the company claims “blends a 16-ounce Daiquiri in seconds."

Fruit

After we spent 21 seconds trying to blend a banana mixed with some soy milk and ice, almost all of the banana remained. We mixed the contents around a bit by hand and turned the Tango on for an additional 36 seconds, but its blades came to a standstill against the ice and fruit long before that time was up. We smelled smoke and cut the motor. Results were similar with the more difficult-to-blend fruits—because the Tango’s blades couldn’t crush the small amount of ice in the blender, they never got close to blending up the fruit chunks.

Ice

Convinced that the Tango would never do any “extreme" blending, we tried a mixed drink test with ice and water. The tango performed a bit better here, blending up some of the ice completely, but many large pieces (longer than one inch) remained.

Final Results

This blender failed every test on our list, showing that horsepower alone won’t lead to effective blending if the blades and blender pitcher don’t do their part of the job.

CLICK FOR MORE 5 Blender Comparison Test
5. Bar None Hamilton Beach	4. Crushing Price Blendtec	3. The Workhorse Breville	2. Smooth Mixing Vita-Mix	1. Winner Kitchen Aid

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