NutriChef Compact Countertop Appliance - Space-Saving Silver Kitchen Gadget for Smoothies, Juicing & Food Prep | Small Appliance for Apartments, Dorms & Small Kitchens

Update: April 26 2017This was purchased on April 2016 and used it about 3~4 times. It was set aside after I purchased a pressure cooker. I decided to give this device another try after the pressure cooker novelty wore out.So I tried to made bean soup. At the end of it cycle, the motor ceased working. The heating element is SUPER, almost TOO powerful. (800watts) And cooks food thoroughly. However, as I suspected, the motor blending is under powered. The 300 watts is certainly not well suited for a blender of this size and purpose. EXAMPLE: The digital controls in a certain setting, cycles through a 10-15 second blend and stops for about 2-3 minutes for cooking (temp control). So that motor is not working continuously, or excessively. Supposedly giving it time to "cool off" But apparently not. The bottom section is very light, an indication that the motor is probably too small. Even my small single serving smoothie blender appears heftier.I think the basic designed was executed with a lot of attention, but their choice to use a poorly size motor ruined it. IMHO.I think it either has a flawed motor with too much drag (without any ingredients or top section inserted) I suppose I could send it back to manufacture, apparently it's still under warranty (One year) But I am not even going to bother to send it back. I will probably have to pay for postage and even using the least expensive method, it will not be worth it. They might even charge me to send it back and then their is no guarantee I'll ever get it back or if they will honor the warranty. The reason I say this, is because the brand is "unknown". The concept is great. I loved it each time I used it (ALL FOUR or FIVE times) Next time I will purchase a name brand such as Cuisinart. I would highly suggest the same. Price = Quality-----------IMO-It has its flaws but does the job well. The heating element is on the bottom of the jug. a whopping 800 watt. The motor is light at only 300 watts.It was missing the strainer and amazon made a partial refund to cover for the replacement from the vendor. Th heating element is excessive for the size of the bottom of the jug, where the element is located, and could leave brunt marks on the stainless steel bottom IF you are not careful, and cleaning can be quite hard to do since the bottom can not be removed (untwisted) The motor appears to struggle at times and is limited to how you turn it on or off. (digital control) That being said. My first attempt at a veggie soup was very good. I would not use raw meat. Cook it fist or halfway.A great concept that appears to me more popular outside the USA/CA (Americas) but somewhat more popular in Europe, Asia, etc. (from my online web research) I'm glad I got it. with a few teaks this would be even better. But the price makes it worth it.-I would suggest you use a non-stick spray at the bottom of the jug, or apply a nice coat of cooking veggie oil before suing it. if you "season" the bottom of the jug stainless steel, it should make cleaning easier.-Keep the two sensors clean. One on the top and one on the bottom of the jug. These two detect the liquid level, and could disable the unit if they are not clean. Keep this in mind if you get an error code. I want to give it 4-5 stars, but it's not quite there yet.-The build quality looks good. I like it. Not cheap for the price.I've gone through three of these now. The first one, the motor burnt up after only about 5 uses. It quit doing anything at all. The blender part simply refused to spin anymore, which resulted in my smooth soup being uncooked and lumpy. It was replaced by Amazon and the blender part died within two uses on the replacement.It was replaced again and then the third one only lasted about 4 uses before no matter what I did it gave me an E5 error, which is that the lid is not on. I did all kinds of stupid things to make sure the lid was on, the sensors were dry, nothing was touching them, the liquid was below the line, etc, etc, performed witchcraft and prayed to every known god in the universe and beyond. Nothing worked. The stupid lid was on, and seated properly but the freaking E5 wouldn't go away. I ended up having to pour it all into a pot and cook it the old fashioned way. As soon as I put the lid back on the now empty container and tried again, the dang thing had no problem and the E5 went away. Really? Really. As long as nothing was in it, the lid read properly. I didn't want air soup. If I'd wanted that, I wouldn't have bought the thing in the first place. I tested this again thinking it was just a fluke, and the exact same thing happened. As soon as I put veggies in (they were cut up to dices, so perfectly small enough) and broth below the line, here comes my nemesis the E5 error. I said many choice words which I won't repeat here, and pulled up a chair, determined to get the error to go away. Surely I'm smart enough to get a lid on a blender, right? Apparently not. After more than half an hour of taking off the lid, putting the lid back on, wiping it down, putting it back on, ad nauseum, the thing won. I poured it all into a pot and put the lid back on the blender/soup (not) cooker. Away goes the E5 error. For real! I called Amazon and arranged for a refund. I'd used the dumb thing successfully before, so it wasn't like I didn't have experience getting the lid on, or wasn't ever able to get it to work. It just decided it wasn't going to make anything else ever again.This one also started grinding off parts of the rotating part of the interlocking discs that connect when you set the blender onto the base. My husband said it made a terrible noise, and when I picked up the container, pieces of gray plastic from the discs were shredded all over the base of the blender stand. There was a fine dust as well as chunks, and you could see where it had been ground down off the interlocking pieces.I really wanted to love it, and I did love it when it worked. I really, really loved it when it worked. I just couldn't keep any of the three I had working for very long at all.So far... I’ve had this for a year and have used it a handful of times. So far I think it is fabulous. Great fresh tomato soup, just made a butternut squash and ginger soup- go good. I’ve also used it to make a smoothie. It cleaned up easily even though the base does not come off. I put water and a drop of soap and ran it for a minute. I hope it holds up to my increase use. Definitely had to read the instructions to know how to make it go. You have to tell it the speed and the time or it won’t start.Have this as a gift. Works well as regular blender but the recipients have indicated that it is difficult to operate otherwise and the instructions are very easy poorly written.Great for a month and a half. Broke once after only a few uses then had to have replacement sent out. Replacement worked longer and now top broke and blender will not blend. Very poor design... No way to turn off sounds among a longer list I'm too lazy to go all the way into.One star only because I purchased this for myself and found it to a good product and like it so well I bought two more, one for each of my daughters. Each of theirs arrived without the metal filter that is a primary feature of the product. Simply getting the missing part is not an option. That's 2 out of 3 units missing key components. Simply bad product integrity.Very nice product but some expensiveIt came with without instruction and very poor condition how you can use without instruction its supposed make juice or soup and smoothy. I have to return it doesn't even deserve one star I gave one star they do not give any hard time to refund but I do very disappointed when I see the blanderI love using this. First batch didn't quite work because I added too many ingredients. It didn't purée until I blended it afterwards. 2nd attempt was awsome. Made a sweet potato onion carrot soup :) I didn't get an after picture but I took one while it was cooking and after it started blending. It was very good and piping hot when finished.Soup maker worked great for the first dozen times, but then stopped working just as the contents began heating up. We found a bit of charring on the heating plate at the bottom of the food container, which we cleaned off. However, the same thing happened the next three times we tried to use the machine, despite exercising great care to follow all operating instructions..The motor is extremely weak and smokes when making thicker soup. My first machine burnt out after only making 2 soups.