This thing worked great for 2 years. It is perfect if you are looking for an easy way to puree soups and other "soft" items. If you are looking to make smoothies with frozen fruit, I do not recommend this hand blender. It is not powerful enough to durably blend frozen fruit. The motor just isn't strong enough. After a few tries trying to blend blackberries, the jacket where the attachment meets the motor became stripped and the attachment would no longer turn with power.Cuisinart's warranty basically means nothing because it'll cost $20 in shipping to send it back. Might as well buy a new one. I've been using the KitchenAid KHB100OB. Its a bit bulkier and more expensive than the Cuisinart but it has worked well with the same frozen fruit that broke my Cuisinart.Overall, this is a great budget item if you are looking for something convenient to put in a pot and puree. But, unless you can throw frozen fruit to soften it up a bit, this will break if you try to blend hard items. Maybe not as quick as mine, but it will over time.This thing is powerfull, easy to use, and easy to clean. I am completely satisfied with this purchase. I was amazed the first time I used it and I now look for recipes that I can create with this. It is an enjoyable experience.
Edited for additional information on 14 October 2010:After using this hand blender heavily, it developed a high pitched grinding noise when running. To fix this and restore the original operation, just squirt a small amount of WD-40 down the inside of the shaft. Run the hand blender for a few seconds in the normal, upright operating position while the WD-40 works into the bearings. Once it reaches the bearings, the noise will immediately disappear. Try not to use too much WD-40 as you don't want excess oil leaking through the shaft into the food. I'm attaching a picture of me squirting the oil in the product images so you can see where to apply the squirt of WD-40 I purchased the Cuisinart SmartStick immersion blender in brushed chrome about three months ago. My chief motive in writing this review is to make life easier for other weekend cooks out there. :-)Pluses:- Powerful and effective- Dependable performance to date- Blends liquid and solid ingredients together in one pot in short order- Has completely replaced my blender and food processor for soups, stews and sauces- When making purees, eliminates the need to blend in batches (a real time saver)- Handier to access in my cupboard than hauling out blender or processor- A breeze to clean (just eject the blade and pop it into the dishwasher)- Takes up much less room in the dishwasher than processor or blender partsI haven't experienced any cons, but I was a little nervous at first about using the stick blender in my nonstick dutch oven or my crockpot. This is an implement that doesn't mess around and I don't want to damage my cookware! But I find it's easy enough to move around in the pot without bumping anything and it draws the ingredients in from the sides and bottom.Today I used it for a chile colorado recipe that called for processing solid ingredients in a food processor with a little liquid to form a paste, then adding the paste to a pot with the rest of the liquid. Instead I quickly pulverized and blended onions, garlic and chiles with all of the liquid and spices, in one step, in one container - saving time, mess and hassle.
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This has the look of a solid, sturdy appliance and the power of a solid, sturdy name behind it. Coupled with a great price, it's a fabulous deal. EXCEPT that it's only going to last a short time. Most of the reviews on here are for thrilled initial owners (I know, because my initial feedback was 5 stars) but I bet if you surveyed people who've used it moderately over a six-month period that they're all having trouble with it.I used mine for blending cooked vegetables in soups, smoothies with raw fruits and kefir, and cooked baby food. All soft things. Not even a frozen fruit smoothie. It worked GREAT! I loved how easy it was to clean up. But pull the two pieces apart to clean and you'll notice inside that each has a plastic part. The whole thing, great motor, blade, and design, hinges on an unseen coupling of two plastic parts. In 8 months of using maybe once weekly and very gently, those plastic parts are completely stripped.Buy it if you're going to use it less than 20 times. If you need an appliance that actually works, buy something else.I watch the show (Oprah), saw the episodes (You...), measured my waist in the proper place (not the natural waist but at the belly button) and learned the truth, bought the book (You: On A Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management), and now wanted to make Dr. Oz's Magical Breakfast Blaster. So I came to Amazon to pick out an immersion blender. I read all the reviews and it was pretty clear that this was everyone's favorite and bought it based on the reviews and secondarily the reasonable price. I had other things in my cart and so got free shipping. (SIDE NOTE: Kudos to Amazon for having carts that seemingly do not empty. When I see something in the paper or hear about something, I go to Amazon and put it in my cart. Maybe I'll buy it later; maybe not. But at least I didn't forget about it.)
This blender is fabulous. Easy to use. I use the nice cup that comes with the blender to make the drink and it's so thick that I drink it right from that cup, too. A typical shake is water, soy protein, frozen blueberries, frozen bananna, frozen whole cranberries, frozen raspberries, NF milk powder, psyllium seed husks, flaxseed oil. This blender BLASTS THROUGH all the frozen chunks. I might have to work it for a few seconds but it pulverizes the hell out of all of it. Maybe the lower wattage immersion blenders wouldn't work as good but I don't know. For 30 bucks, trust me, people, get this delightful little blender. The only thing I have made with it is the Magical Breakfast Blaster on page 265 of the YOU diet book, but I would think that blending a lot of frozen chunks of fruit would be the most challenging job for this blender. If it does this great, surely it has to work great for any other type of blending.Edited on 5-17-08: I still love the blender. I use it a lot for making cappuchino-feeling coffee. In a large mug of coffee, I add a lot of non-fat skim milk powder and sometimes 1 packet of sugar in the raw and sometimes a teaspoon or two of cocoa powder. The immersion blender does a great job of blending and creating terrific foam. Another thing it's great for is mincing garlic. Peel the garlic and put them in the container the blender comes with, a couple of pulses, and voila, in 2 seconds it's perfect to throw into the pan.
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Well ok, maybe I am not all shook up so much as BLENDED up. I purchased this immersion blender after my older no name brand unit purchased at Wally World died in the middle of blending a pot of hot soup. I like that you can wash the blenders blade assembly in the dishwasher and the stainless steel shaft is not stained like so many of the ALL PLASTIC models. Another thing I love is the power of the unit and the sharpness of the blades; they will reduce a pot of cream of broccoli soup to a smooth consistency in nothing flat.Oh and when I say broccoli soup folks, I MEAN broccoli soup. I put nearly two bunches of steamed broccoli in my soup and I only chunk it prior to blending with the immersion blender. This blender will puree` the soup to a perfect creamy texture in nothing flat. (Reserve a few pieces of the chunked broccoli to add back to the soup for texture purposes) I have also used it on my potato and asparagus soups with equally great results.If you are looking for an immersion blender with lots of power and a "NO STAIN" Stainless Steel shaft then IMO, you cannot go wrong with this model from Cusinart.Happy Blending!I know it's my fault, but I didn't read the fine print of the product description, I just saw that it was described as "brushed chrome." The top part is actually ABS plastic painted in the color "brushed chrome," with the bottom part of the wand being stainless steel. It would be more appropriate to describe this blender as gray than the deceiving name they've chosen. The top part has a somewhat flimsy feel to it when you consider how powerful it is.
I was not at all expecting this blender to be as enormously powerful as it is; it works amazingly well. One thing that I didn't like so much was that when I put it in a stock pot to blend a soup, the wand was so powerful that it sucked itself down to the bottom of the pot, making it difficult to move to other areas of the pot while on. It was nearly impossible to keep the wand off the bottom of the pot with a soup that was about 5-6 inches deep, and I'm a big, athletic guy. Variable speed would be a nice feature, and it's available on other immersion blenders. Depending on the particle size of the things you are blending, they may not get pulled through the blade guard (see picture) and blended if the wand is stuck on the bottom of the pot. It works great though; it'll blend an entire pot of soup in about 20 secondsI wish I could put the blender in a nalgene bottle, but the blender is just a tad too wide.The bottom part detaches and cleans easily either in the sink or in the dishwasher; no complaints there at all.
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This flashlight arrived in yesterday's mail and it seems like it's a great flashlight. Nice size and fits my hand well. Light is very bright. Didn't realize this would be able to replace my heavy spotlight that recently died but it sure does! I live in a rural area with no streetlights so important for me to have a good spotlight available.My "complaint" is the lack of instruction from the manufacturer...took me a bit to realize the tail cap twists open. Guess maybe, because it's square and all other flashlights and spotlights I've had were round. Who knows?:) And, to see how the batteries go in almost requires a magnifying glass because the tiny, tiny raised etching is inside the flashlight on the sides. There is a picture of batteries on the packaging but it doesn't specify on which sides they must be faced; 4 batteries but 2 go up and 2 go down so took switching them around to get them correct. Just slightly annoying.Having said that, overall I'm pleased with the flashlight itself and have ordered another.I do have some smaller AAA round flashlights made by Dorcy and am also pleased with those. I think I'm going to prefer this square one though.:)You can get better flashlights and cheaper flashlights, but if you want something to sit in a drawer or glovebox as a backup, that is bright and throws light a decent distance, and is cheap enough that you don't care if it gets lost or damaged, this is it, hands down. I've found it to be too bright for indoor work, but great for camping and finding addresses outdoors at night when traveling. Shine from the car window and it throws far enough to light up buildings etc nearby. Square size fits nicely in a corner of the glovebox and doesn't roll away if I set it on the car hood for a minute.
I used Mag Lights for years as a delivery driver, but the last couple of Mags I have had the switches fell apart or they otherwise crapped out, so I don't spend the money any more.On the con side, this light is lightweight plastic, step on it or throw it hard and it will break, and the rubber front and rear grips/caps will pull off, but only if you willfully pull on them. I wouldn't get it for everyday use, it would wear out, but to have around for occasional use it's good.A big down side as mentioned by others is the batteries have to go in exactly the right way or it doesn't light up. Took a few tries to figure that out, then I marked the inside with a sharpie so I knew which way they went next time.
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